


The Spaces We Leave Behind

by AstridContraMundum



Series: Ask Me No More [2]
Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Art Heists, Kidnapping (It’s Morse), Multi, With sprinkles of Fugue and Trove, case-fic, gothic gaslighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2020-05-16 23:50:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 140,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19328614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridContraMundum/pseuds/AstridContraMundum
Summary: PC Morse is learning the ropes of his new career—and learning to settle in with his newfound family—when a deranged serial killer terrorizing Oxford threatens to take away everything he has worked to build.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story begins just a few weeks after The Silences Between Us leaves off....
> 
> ... with all the fluff and h/c I couldn’t fit in the first one because the spy plot was more complicated than I thought! :D

“You have a birthday coming up, don’t you?” Win asked brightly, one morning at breakfast. “Have you given any thought as to what you would like to do?”

 

Sitting at the dining room table, in his chair in the corner, Morse ducked his head and ruffled up the waves at the back of his nape.

 

“It’s your birthday?” Sam asked. “When is it?”

“September,” Morse said, vaguely.

Sam laughed. “It’s September now. _When_ in September?”

 

There was a silence then, and Morse looked as if he’d like to do nothing more than to blend into the white and gold wallpaper behind him and disappear completely.

 “The twenty-fourth,” he supplied, finally.

“That’s not for a few weeks, then. We’ve got time to plan,” Joan said.

“Oh,” Morse said. “I don’t really want . . . I don’t want to put anyone to any trouble.”

“Don't be silly. We ought to do a _little_ something, Morse. Why don’t we have a nice birthday tea, then, just the five of us?” Win asked.

 

Morse’s eyes flickered, as if he was casting about for something. Then, they seemed to light up. “Actually,” he said, “I couldn’t. I have a concert that night.”

“Oh, well, that’s perfect,” Win said. “We can all go to the concert and then come home for a little celebration. Why don’t you invite that friend of yours, too, that nice young man who came that time for tea?”  

Joan rolled her lined eyes. “Mum. I’m not sure how many times the Earl of Marston is going to come trolling around our neighborhood.”

 

Joan looked to Morse for confirmation on this, but the lad was looking down again, making a study of his toast.

 

Thursday watched the exchange over the top of his newspaper. The lad could be as awkward as an uneven step—that was true enough—but why all of the subterfuge about his birthday? Was it _so_ terrible, to have a few people wish you many happy returns of the day?

 

“So,” Sam asked, “how old will you be turning?”

Morse mumbled something into his teacup.

“What?” Sam said.

 

Ah. So that was it.

It wasn’t only Morse’s natural reticence that led him to beg off any questions about his birthday, but that his age was bound to draw attention to the fact that he’d lost five years somewhere along the line.

 

“Never you mind how old he is,” Thursday said. “It’s not good manners, isn’t it? Asking someone their age?”

Sam gave him a look that suggested that Thursday was the one he now suspected to hail from outer space, rather than Morse.

“Dad,” he said. “Morse isn’t some maiden aunt. Of course, you can ask a mate how old he is.” He stole a glance at Morse. “You aren’t offended, are you Morse?”

“No,” Morse said, quietly.

“So, what then?”

“I’ll be. . . . I’ll be twenty-seven.”

 _“Twenty-seven?”_ Sam blurted out. “What have you been . . . “

“Sam,” Thursday said, hitting the table with the newspaper. “What did I just tell you? Manners, son.”

“Sorry, dad. I was just surprised is all. I mean," he asked, with a look to Morse, "how many years did it take you to fail out of Oxford?”

 

Morse quirked a smile at that. “It seemed like an eternity, at the time.”  

 

“So when did you . . . .?” Sam began.

“Morse was in the Arm . . .” said Thursday, cutting him off.

 

“There’s the doorbell,” Morse said, standing up abruptly, even though Thursday was certain he heard nothing. “We had better go, sir.”

 

 

Once they stepped outside, it was just as Thursday thought. DS Jakes hadn’t rung the bell at all; he was, in fact, just pulling into the drive.

“Eager beaver this morning, are we?” asked Jakes, as Morse made a lurch for the back seat of the car.

“Hmmmm,” Morse said.

Thursday settled himself in the passenger seat, and then Jakes put the car into reverse and pulled smoothly out of the drive.

 

On the drive to the station, Morse remained silent in the back seat—so quiet, that Thursday flicked a look in the side mirror, to see if he could catch a glimpse of him.

Morse was looking out of the window, a faint crease between his brows, cradling his custodian helmet in his lap.

“Penny for them?” Thursday said, at last.

Morse looked thoughtful for a moment. “You can tell them, sir. If you want,” he said, at last. “Joan and Sam. I mean . . . _I_ don’t want to do it. But it’s all right if you do. I don’t mind. They’re bound to notice something is off. I’m living there, now. There’s just . . . there’s just a hundred ways it could come up.”  He sighed. “Mrs. Thursday was right, I suppose.”

“You were in the Army. That was good enough for Chief Constable Standish,” Thursday said.

“It was,” Morse agreed. “It is. But not for Joan and Sam. I . . . I don’t want you to have to lie. Not to your son and daughter. Not for me.”

 

Jakes raised his eyebrows, but for once, had no comment.

And what else could Thursday say, when he put it like that?

 

“All right, then, lad,” he said.

And Thursday was grateful. He had had qualms about that. Even though he told himself it was none of his children’s nevermind, it just didn’t sit right, somehow, all the evasions about Morse's past. Not at home.

 

**********

 

At the wide front door, Morse turned off down the hall toward the main office to meet up with PC Fancy, while Thursday started up the stairs after Jakes, to the offices of the CID.

“Lamb and Flag for lunch, then? Say about one?” Thursday called after him.

“All right, sir,” Morse said.

“Bring Fancy along, too, if you’d like.”

Morse made a face that suggested he’d like nothing of the sort and started to continue down the hall.

“Morse!”

Morse turned, his big blue eyes widening in surprise.

“That wasn’t a suggestion.”

Morse sighed.

“Sir,” he said.

 

As they were striding up the steps, Thursday rumbled to Jakes, “If he won’t learn to rub along with people on his own, I’ll bloody well _make_ him do it.”

Jakes shook his head, laughing, and pulled a cigarette out of his pocket.  

“I wish you luck, sir.”

 

************

As soon as they got up to the office, DC Strange was waiting for them, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, impatiently.  

“We had a call in, sir. From a woman up in North Oxford. Stolen painting, it seems. She says it’s worth tens of thousands of pounds.”

Strange glanced down at the piece of yellow note paper he held in his hand. “’The Blessed Damsel,’” or something, she called it. By Dante Gabriel Rossetti.”

Jakes took a drag off of his cigarette. “Christ,” he said. “Sounds Italian. Is this some Renaissance thing? It could be worth millions.”

Strange shrugged.

“Well, good thing the car engine’s still warm, sergeant. Let’s head over and find out,” Thursday said. 

 

************

 

“It was my brother who took it, I’m sure of it,” Sonia Hunter said. “He’s always been jealous that our uncle left the painting to me. But our uncle knew all too well that he would sell it, and he was keen to keep his collection together.”

“Collection, ma’am?” Thursday asked, taking in the room.

 

It might have been beautiful, were it not so closed-off and dark and layered in blankets of dust. Sonia Hunter was a wealthy widow and a bit of a recluse, it seemed. She kept the blinds down, and her poor houseplants grew long and thin, struggling for the light that filtered between the slots.

 

“Yes,” Mrs. Hunter said. “He simply adored the Pre-Raphaelites, my uncle. He left me a collection of eight paintings.”

”Pre-Raphaelites?” Jakes asked.

”Yes,” Mrs. Hunter said. “They were a group of artists and poets who were active from the middle to the end of the last century. They were inspired by the simpler, more natural, style of Italian painting before the High Renaissance. Thus, the name Pre-Raphaelite. As in before the imitators of Raphael.”

“So, they were, what? Victorian era, then?” Jakes asked, pausing to look up from his notebook.

“That’s right. The painting that is missing is called ‘The Blessed Damozel.’ By Rossetti. It was painted in 1875, using Alexa Wilding as a model. It was based on a poem that he wrote.”

“When my uncle died,” she continued, “my brother Simon, was keen to sell them, the paintings. He’s a bit of a gambling problem, I’m afraid. But I always loved looking at them as a little girl. I imagined whole lives for them. Paintings like that, of that caliber, they have a soul, you see. I could never sell them. It would be almost like . . . like selling a friend.”

 

Jakes and Thursday exchanged glances. The woman had gotten a bit eccentric perhaps, through too much living alone. Personifying paintings, the way that Morse once did for numbers.

“Let’s get forensics over to dust the place for prints,” Thursday said to Jakes. Then, he turned to Mrs. Hunter. “What’s your brother’s address, ma’am?”

 

********************

Fancy and Morse walked along Jericho Street. It all still seemed so new, sometimes, after years in the white room, this sudden panorama of sounds and colors: the brightly-painted pub signs, the gleam of copper window frames, the earthiness of brick, the chatter in the pub garden or in the covered market, the strains of a radio from a flat window, the smell of salt and vinegar from the chippy, a waft of perfume in a crowded street. And then on the skyline, the silence of marble and of steeples and the long, slow rolling of the bells.  It was the Oxford he remembered, bursting back into life.

Fancy stopped before a shop window, considering a shirt that hung there. “Look at that getup. Wild. I wonder if I could pull it off?” he mused.

Morse shrugged. He didn’t have an opinion one way or the other.

He didn’t have an opinion one way or the other on a lot of things Fancy seemed to care about, as a matter of fact.  

 

Morse turned to look down the sidewalk. Up ahead, there was a bit of commotion out on the street. A crowd of people were all trying to herd into a record shop.

“What’s this, then?” Fancy asked.

“I dunno,” Morse said, thoughtfully.

“Hmmmm,” Fancy mused. “I think I see something that bears looking into.”

Morse followed his gaze and understood just what “something” he meant. Out in front of the shop’s wide windows, stood a young, blonde WPC, her hair neatly pinned beneath her cap. She was helping to keep order, holding her hands up, directing the people in the crowd to form a queue.

 

Fancy sauntered over to her, his legs suddenly looking as if they were made of rubber, so that he seemed to roll along as he went. Morse followed crisply, a half-step behind, his hands clutched behind his back.

 

“Hello,” Fancy said, once they ranged within earshot of the WPC. “What do we have here?”

 “A pop band’s here, autographing records. The Wildwood. It’s created a bit of a disturbance,” the young woman said.

“Oh,” Morse said. “I think I might have heard of them.”

 

Wasn’t that the band Joan and her friends were all abuzz about last summer? Perhaps she was right, Joan. Perhaps knowing such things _would_ help him to get along with other people.

 

But both Fancy and the WPC were looking at him a little oddly.

“Who _hasn’t_ heard of them?” Fancy asked.

 

Then he turned back to the young woman. “PC Fancy,” he said, introducing himself. “George.”

“WPC Trewlove,” she replied.

 

Morse had to stifle a groan. Long experience with his own clumsy Christian name had set him on alert, and he waited for Fancy to make some painful pun on the surname  _Trewlove_.

But instead, the next line he dropped was almost worse.

“So. What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?”

She blinked.

“My job,” she said coldly.

 

Even someone as obtuse as Fancy couldn’t help but feel the palpable drop in the temperature.

“Hard to get eh?” he said.

“Oh, you’ve no idea.”

Amazingly, Fancy just kept on smiling. “I like a challenge.”

And then he strolled off.

It took Morse a few seconds to realize that he had left, so—for one terrible moment—he was left standing there, like a forgotten suitcase on a sidewalk curb.

Then, Morse startled and followed after him, keen to distance himself from whatever it was that just transpired.

 

“Idiot,” she heard Trewlove hiss behind them, and Morse couldn’t help but agree.

But when he turned to cast an apologetic look over his shoulder, his eyes widened in surprise.

Trewlove’s gaze was following Fancy as he passed, as if accessing him with a critical eye. And she didn’t look too displeased with her evaluation.

 

Incredible.

 

The young WPC seemed so able, so poised and self-assured. That awful line could not possibly have worked.

Could it?

Morse had no idea what to make of it. He’d never understand any of it. It was a game with no rules.

And he had come to understand years ago that he would never learn how to play it.

 

***********

 

“Thanks, by the way,” Fancy said.

“For what?” Morse asked.

“For pretending you weren’t sure if you’d heard of the Wildwood. Made me look a lot smoother in comparison.”

“Of course,” Morse said. “Any time.”

 

No. He’d never understand.

 

They had just made their way to the edge of their beat, when they heard the screaming.

They exchanged startled glances.

 

It wasn’t the scream of a child playing, or a cry of surprise.

 

It was a scream of terror. Of fear.

 

They ran around the corner in the direction of the sound and found a young woman, standing out on the sidewalk, spinning almost in circles, screaming, incoherently.  Down the street, doors were opening, as people began to dart out to see what was happening.

As soon has the young woman saw them, she ran to them, grasping onto the blue lapels of Morse’s uniform.  “She’s dead,” the young woman cried. "She's . . . she's dead!" 

“Who?” Morse asked. “What’s happened?”

“My flatmate. I just came home. And she’s all laid out on the couch. And someone’s . …” the girl’s words dissolved into a torrent of sobs, that seemed to echo down the shop-lined street. “... someone .... _killed_ her.”

Morse put a hand around the girl’s shoulder, and she collapsed against him, sobbing into the heavy fabric and silver buttons of his jacket.

He turned to Fancy. “We had better call for the CID.”

 

Fancy nodded and stalked off into the next-door shop to use the telephone.

 

Just then, an older heavy-set woman with soft brown hair approached. “Judy, dear?” she asked tentatively. “What’s happened?”

The young woman crying against Morse’s chest turned at once to the more familiar voice and threw herself into the older woman’s arms.

“I just got off my shift. And when I went up to the flat . . .  Alice. She’s dead,”’ she cried.

The older woman put a hand around the girl, and looked up at Morse over her shuddering form, lines of shock and concern set in her face.

 

“Inspector Thursday and DS Jakes are on their way,” Fancy said, running back up to him.

“Fancy,” Morse said, quietly. “She just found the body. For all we know, this might have just happened.”

 

Morse could see at once by the horrified look in Fancy’s dark eyes that he understood.

 

The murderer might still be in the building.

 

They both turned and ran through the doors, tearing up and down the stairs, looking and listening for signs of any disturbance, for any signs that the killer might still be about. But all that they found were bewildered tenants looking searchingly out of their doors.

 

At a flat near the end of the last hall, a door was left open. They bolted in.

 

Inside, in the front room, a young woman with long dark hair was laid out on the sofa. Her hair had been perfectly arranged, pulled out long behind her, with seven, silver star-shaped hair clips, flowing back in a line from one temple. Her arms were crossed over her abdomen, and she held three white lilies in her folded hands. She might have been asleep, if her throat had not been slit, leaving a pool of blood to . . .

 

Fancy pulled off his custodian helmet and held it in his arms. Morse had to turn away.

 

And then. . . something came to him. The hair clips that were arranged in a style that Morse had never seen amongst Joan and Sam’s friends. The three lilies.

 

“ _Her eyes were deeper than the depth of waters stilled at even; She had three lilies in her hand, and the stars in her hair were seven,_ ” Morse murmured.

“What?” Fancy asked.

 

Morse frowned. Because why? What was the point of arranging her so?

 

“Morse?” Fancy asked, his brown eyes pooling with concern, “Are you all right? Morse?”

Morse looked up, meeting Fancy’s gaze.

“She’s the Blessed Damozel,” Morse said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I should add to the tags... a sprinkle of the Pilot, too, ... because I have never done the iconic “fainting scene” before...
> 
> .... it’s been done before, I know... and, well, here it is again....

Thursday and Jakes had just returned to the station when the call came in.

“It’s PC Fancy,” the duty sergeant said. “A woman’s been found dead, murdered, over in Jericho.”

 

Thursday felt a twinge of nerves deep in his gut, a feeling he hadn’t had since his early days back in the Smoke. It was a strain of tension, not for himself, but for Morse.

He couldn’t help but remember the second time he had ever met the lad, when Morse was in hospital, when he had gone pale and turned away at the sight of the nurse removing his IV.

 

And now, he had run across his first murder victim.

 

Was the lad alright?

Not to mention that Fancy, too, was about as green as they come. Thursday stole a look at Jakes, and could tell his sergeant was thinking the same thing.

“Well,” Jakes said. “Let’s get over there, then.”

****

At the door of the dead woman’s flat, Morse and Fancy stood, like two bookends, keeping post. Fancy looked uncertain, Morse lost, as if his thoughts were a hundred miles away.

“All right, then?” Thursday asked.

They both nodded, slowly, as if they were actually considering their answers to the question, as if they understood it wasn’t meant to be merely rhetorical.

 

Then, Thursday and Jakes crossed the threshold into the flat, where they found Dr. DeBryn writing in his notebook, just a few feet from where the body of a young girl was laid out on the sofa.

 

By god, but it was a sad sight. So young. So fresh-faced and young. She looked as if she might have been sleeping—if her throat had not been cut with deadly precision, soaking the couch and the carpet below in a pool of bright scarlet.

 

Jakes’ eyes, so often hooded in shadow, went dead at the sight.

 

She was holding a bouquet of flowers, of all things. Most likely a former boyfriend, then. It was a sad tale that Thursday had seen too many times before: young girl tries to get out of a violent relationship, and the man won’t be deterred.

 

“Doctor?” Thursday asked.

“Inspector,” DeBryn said curtly, before launching into his findings. “Dead between three to five hours. Cause of death, exsanguination.” 

“What do you make of the flowers?” Jakes asked.

“Token of affection perhaps?” DeBryn said dryly, and, for the second time that morning, Thursday felt a twist in his gut. It was most probably so.

“Had she been ...?” Thursday prompted.

“No,” DeBryn said, quietly. “No obvious sign. I’ll have chapter and verse for you in a few hours. Shall we say around one o’clock?”

Thursday nodded. “Doctor.”

“Inspector,” DeBryn replied, snapping his bag shut and leaving the room with a retuning nod.

 

Thursday sighed, taking a look around the tidy little living room. “Let’s talk to her flatmate, then,” Thursday said, heavily. “See if there might have been a boyfriend or former boyfriend in the picture.”

“Sir,” Jakes nodded.

 

They went, then, back into the hall, to where Fancy and Morse stood vigil.

“Where’s her flatmate?” Thursday asked. “Sergeant Abrams said it was she who found the body.”

“Yes. Judy Kirche. She’s with a neighbor, Mrs. Taylor,” Fancy replied. “Downstairs. Mrs. Taylor’s looking after her. She’s quite upset.”  

 

Jakes snorted and pulled out a cigarette, in what Thursday understood to be a nervous gesture.

“Little wonder,” he said.

 

Morse said nothing, but an odd little flicker of something passed over his face, just for a moment, and then it was gone—and he was again his prickly self: all stoicism and austere cheekbones and imperious blue eyes.

 

Fancy was regarding him, uncertainly.

“You going to tell him . . . . ?” he ventured.

 

“Tell me what?” Thursday said, at once.

 

Morse took a deep breath and moved to scrub up the waves at the back of his nape, so that his custodian’s helmet seemed for a moment as if it might tilt precariously off-center.

“I’m aware that it sounds . . . odd,” he said. “But. . . . what do you make of those stars in her hair? Those lilies?”

 

Disturbing as it surely would be to Fancy and Morse to hear, Thursday would have to tell them the truth: he had seen that sort of thing before.

He had seen killers leave tokens, change their victims’ clothes, move bodies to different locations—ones that held some sort of twisted meaning to them—and a hundred other such things, which all boiled down to one thing: the killer’s desire to exert one more degree of power over his victims’ lives, to be the last one to tell the tale, to get the last word in.

 

“I don’t know, yet, what to make of it, lad. Killer leaving some calling card, I suppose.”

“Because she . . . ,” Morse said, “She looks to me like she’s been dressed to resemble a girl in a poem. Possibly.”

“A poem?” Jakes asked, quirking his mouth in a bit of a smirk.

But Morse raised his chin, undeterred. “Her eyes were deeper than the depth of waters stilled at even; she had three lilies in her hand and the stars in her hair were seven.’ It’s called ‘The Blessed Damozel,’ by Dante Gabriel . . .”

“... Rossetti,” Jakes said, his smirk fading.

 

Morse looked at him, sharply.

 

“We had a call this morning. An art collector, up in north Oxford, Sonia Hunter, just reported a painting by that name stolen,” Thursday said.

“ _Stolen_?” Morse asked. He paused for a moment, taking this information in.

“That’s right, “Jakes said. “She was certain that it was her brother who had taken the paining—in some sort of inheritance squabble—but we checked it all out; he’s got an alibi, he’s been in London, all week, at the Belvedere.”

 

“It  _can’t_  be a coincidence. There must be a connection,” Morse said, with just a touch of defiance, and Thursday knew Morse was thinking of the time he had told him it was a mistake, making too many connections.

 

That was the lad all over. Forgot a compliment in the space of two seconds, but any criticism, no matter how gently given—well, that he clung onto and turned over and over in his heart until it was a well-worn stone.  

 

But this. This was not one of Morse’s far-flung theories. Someone had taken pains to make the connection painfully obvious.

He met Morse’s eyes and nodded, grimly. “I’m not inclined to disagree, constable.”

It wasn’t until then that Thursday noticed how Morse had been holding himself so stiffly—it was not until he let it be known that he would hear him out, that he relaxed into his typical slouch.  

 

*********

But then, Thursday interviewed Alice Heverstone’s flatmate, Judy Kirche, and he began to change his mind, he began to feel that his first instinct was spot on, after all.

 

“So. Was Miss Heverstone seeing anyone?” Thursday asked.

“Well,” Judy Kirche replied uncertainly, clutching her hands in her lap, “She’s been seeing this one fellow. They had a blazing row down at the pub a few nights ago, and Alice broke it off for a while, but then they made it up again.”

“A row?” Thursday asked at once, all of his copper’s instincts honing in on a pattern he had seen time and time over.

“Yes. She was so angry, Alice. She said, ‘Don’t bother coming round to ours. I’m dead to you!’ She was always a good friend, a loyal friend, Alice. But she had a temper like that. But . . . but it was all a misunderstanding. Tim wouldn’t do something like that. I . . . I just can’t believe it.”

“Do you know what the row was about?” Thursday intoned.

“Yes. Laurie, a friend of ours, told Alice that Tim had been stepping out behind her back. But it wasn’t true. Tim had only been out with a coworker’s visiting cousin, to make up a four. It was just dinner. To help out a friend. She and Tim patched it up and everything,” she said.

“Do you know where this Tim lives?”

“No,” Judy said. “But I know he works at British Imperial. Tim Beech. That’s his name. You can find him there. But I know it’s not him. It just can’t be. It can’t.”

*****

As Thursday and Jakes left Mrs. Taylor’s flat, they nearly ran smack into Morse, who was stalking about out in the hallway, listening, evidently, to every word.

Thursday drew back, startled.

“Well, she’s right,” Morse said. “It certainly isn’t this Tim Beech person.”

“You’ve discharged your duties here constable,” Thursday said. “You had best get back upstairs and keep post with Fancy, mind that flat until the coroner’s men get here.”

 

He had continued a few steps down the hall when Morse called out to him.

“Alice? Her name was Alice?” Morse asked.

Thursday turned. “Yeah, why?”

“The Pre-Raphaelites had a handful of models who sat for them for several of their paintings. One of them, the model Rossetti used for ‘The Blessed Damozel’ was Alexa Wilding.”

“Yeah. And?”

“Alexa was a bit of a stage name. Her real name was Alice.”

“Alice is not the most uncommon name, Morse,” Thursday said. “I’ve told you, I don’t disagree with you. I’m keeping what you said in mind. But first things first. When a woman turns up dead, in my experience, eight times out of ten the assailant is someone she knows. Jakes and I are going to check out this boyfriend.”

 

“I’m dead to you,” Morse said.

 

Thursday scowled. Was he  _that_  sour about it? Their going to see Tim Beech? A lead was a lead, after all. It certainly warranted bearing out.

 

“What’s that, constable?” Thursday asked.

“Judy Kirche said that Alice Heverstone said, ‘I’m dead to you.’ ‘The Blessed Damozel is about a dead woman whose lover is mourning her.’”

 

All right. Now he was taking it a bit far.

 

“One thing said in a pub, Morse.”

“Fine,” Morse said, testily. “I’ll see you back at the station.”

****

Within two minutes of meeting Tim Beech, Thursday had to admit that Morse and Judy Kirche were right.

The lad was slender and gawky, with flaming red hair and a painfully young and open face.

“What?” he asked. “Alice? It can’t be.... How . . . Who could have done such a...”

And then he buried his face in his hands and stared shaking.

The line supervisor walked over then, and, after inquiring what their visit was all about, told Thursday and Jakes that Tim Beech had just come off a ten-hour shift.

It would be impossible for a man working on a busy assembly line in a crowded factory to have made it all the way to Jericho and back with no one noticing. 

In the meanwhile, Tim Beech just sat there, sobbing. Thursday felt like hell.

*****

Once he got back to the nick, Thursday sank into the chair behind his desk and lit a pipe. After a morning like he had had, a man needed a smoke.

He had just leaned back in his chair, when he noticed an odd package sitting amidst the flotsam and jetsam on his desk. It was addressed to him, but there was no return address.

He opened it carefully.

Inside, he found an old hardback book, dusty with age, with a simple silver cover printed with art nouveau embellishments and a few spare words.

 

The Picture of Dorian Gray

      by Oscar Wilde

 

Thursday thumbed his way backwards through the rough, heavy, yellowing pages until, near the very front of the book, he came to a passage that had been underlined in heavy blue ink. 

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not the sitter,” Thursday read aloud. 

 

He stood and went out his office door, out into the bay of desks in the front room.

 

“Jakes,” he called. “What do you make of this?”

He handed Jakes the book to look over. 

“I don’t know, sir. “ _A portrait of the artist, not the sitter_.”  Does the killer consider himself....some sort of artist? Is the murder meant to express something about himself?”

Thursday hummed, considering. If it were so, if the killer had chosen his victim at random, simply to recreate that painting, they were in for a hell of a time.  If that were the case, the connection between Alice Heverstone and her murderer could be tenuous at best.

 

“What’s the book about? That might give an answer,” Jakes said.

“I don’t know, sergeant,” Thursday replied. 

“Why don’t we ask Morse?” Jakes snorted. “Be quicker than calling over at the colleges.”

 

Just then, as if he had heard his name, Morse came trailing into the office, followed by Fancy.

Thursday wondered vaguely if Morse was checking up on him.

“Hello, sir,” he said.

“Morse. What are you doing here?”

Morse looked affronted. “You told me to meet you. For the Lamb and Flag. For lunch.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Thursday said. “Nearly one, is it? Listen, I won’t be able to make it: I’ve got to see DeBryn. But before I go, I was hoping you would look at this. I just got it—it was in a package, addressed to me, but with no return address. You know what this book’s about?”

 

He handed him the book, and Morse frowned.

 

 “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” he said. “It’s about a painter, Basil Hallward, and how he becomes fascinated with a young man, Dorian Gray, who sits for him for a portrait. Hallward becomes obsessed with the idea of capturing the young man perfectly on the canvas.”

 

Thursday’s dark eyes flashed at that. “ _Capturing_  him?”

 

Morse nodded. “After a fashion, yes. But as Hallward is completing his painting, a friend of his, Lord Henry Wotton, drops by, and begins at once to instill his own hedonistic and amoral worldview into Dorian Gray. He tells him he should live life to the hilt while he still has his youth and beauty. They are not long, the days of wine and roses, that sort of thing.”

 

Jakes took a drag on his cigarette. “Yeah. And?”

 

“When the portrait is finished, Gray is horrified. He realizes suddenly that his portrait will stay forever unchanged, preserving his youth, while he himself grows old and withers. So he makes a wish that just the opposite should be so. That he should do just as he pleases and still keep his outward appearance, while the image in the painting grows old and debauched and horrible.”

“Does it work?” Jakes asked.

“Yes,” Morse said. “Well. In the novel. I don’t believe such a thing would work in real life,” he added, as if keen to make himself clear.

Jakes rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean to suggest anything otherwise, Morse.”

“So, what do you make of it?” Thursday asked.

 

Morse looked at him, startled. “You think this is from the killer?”

 

Thursday shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve received a message or a taunt by a psychopath keen to show off. Did you see that underlined passage?”

 

Morse flipped through the book to the underlined page and read, a frown of concentration settling across his face.

“I’m not sure, sir,” he said slowly. “I’d have to think about it. Does he think he might capture a spirit for a painting? To see if ... I don’t know... the painting might contain the soul of a person, the way Gray’s portrait did? Is he comparing his deed to a work of art? I just ... I don’t know. But it certainly rules out Tim Beech.”

“Why?” Thursday asked, annoyed by the assumption, even though he had already determined it was true.  “A working man can’t read a book now and then?”

“No,” Morse weighing the volume in his hand. “But this copy is a part of a limited, first edition. Bit beyond the pocket of a factory worker, I’d have thought.”

“Hmmmm,” Thursday said. “If that’s the case, if Alice Heverstone was chosen only at random, as some sort of experiment, we are going to have to grasp at any straw we can get. There might be something telling DeBryn uncovers at the autopsy. You and Fancy had best come along.”

“Sir?” Morse and Fancy chorused, and Thursday felt a twinge of doubt.

 

He wasn’t sure if Morse was up to it, but with a killer like this at large, Thursday could not afford to miss a detail. Besides, Thursday was fast realizing that a little more of an expression of confidence in Morse might be just the thing to help the lad along.

 

“Jakes,” Thursday said, “Take a look through what we have so far, get it up on the pegboard. Try taking a look at it through fresh eyes, see what you make of it. Then check if forensics has any match on those prints.”

“Sir,” Jakes said. 

“Fancy, Morse, you’re with me.”

He turned and walked off as the two PCs exchanged a startled glance behind him, one that Thursday pretended not to see.

 

 

*******

“The subject is a twenty-two-year-old female. Cause of death, exsanguination. However, it seems as if the victim also suffered a degree of blunt trauma to the parietal lobe,” Dr. DeBryn said.

 

“So, someone hit her on the head first then?” Fancy interpreted. “Sort of knocked her out maybe, before he . . .? “

 

“That’s just what I said, constable,” DeBryn said, tilting his head to give him a foreboding look over his glasses.

Fancy seemed to shrink under his gaze, and, once the doctor was satisfied that there would be no more interruptions, he placed his scalpel at the top of Alice Heverstone’s forehead.

 

Thursday stole a glance at Morse. He was steady on his feet, looking pale but resolute. He seemed to understand that he was needed, that if there were any other odd little corollaries between the murder and the art heist, he would be the one to find them.

 

 

“First, we peel the scalp forward, thus, to expose the skull,” DeBryn said.

 

As DeBryn cut across the line where Alice Heverstone’s dark hair met her pale brow, what blood the young girl had retained began to trail out in a moving stream, like a red flow of a tide, across the mortuary table.

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Thursday saw Morse waver—at first, he thought he was simply suffering a wave of lightheadedness at the sight.

 

“Morse?”

 

But then, in just an instant, he was tilting like a felled sapling, swaying backwards to the ground.

 

“Morse!” he shouted.

 

Thursday caught him by the shoulders and eased him slowly to the white tiled floor, shifting his hand to the back of his head at the last moment to set it gently down. Morse’s arms and legs had folded awkwardly as he fell; he seemed utterly boneless, like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

 

DeBryn blinked at him, owlishly from behind his heavy glasses. If he was surprised at all, his face did not betray it.

 

“There’s a sofa in my office,” he said, simply.

And perhaps it would be kinder to move Morse off the scene, especially with Fancy looking on. Even though he and Fancy had joined the force with the same group of recruits, Thursday knew Morse seemed to like to think of him as his “junior colleague” due to the years that separated him.

Thursday bent down, and, somehow, managed to get one arm under Morse’s shoulders and one under his knees; then, he hoisted him up with him as he stood, trying to keep his head from rolling back at too painful an angle. Morse wasn’t heavy so much as he was damned awkward to get a hold of, all arms and legs sprawling out every which way.

He carried him into the next room, Fancy and DeBryn all the while politely pretending as if they hadn’t much noticed anything amiss, as if to spare Morse’s feelings, even though, at the time, he was far beyond caring.

 

During the rest of the autopsy, Thursday kept half-expecting a pale and drawn Morse to venture back out into the mortuary. But by the time DeBryn had finished, he still hadn’t joined them. Could it be that he was still out cold? Or was he just hiding, embarrassed to be seen by Fancy, or loath to witness the conclusion of the procedure?

Once DeByrn had put away his instruments and washed his hands, Thursday sent Fancy back to the station to get a message to Jakes and then returned with DeBryn to the doctor’s office.

Morse was sprawled out on the sofa, his head tipped back, looking as white as the clinical walls and absolutely dead to the world. DeBryn frowned down at him thoughtfully, as if he, too, thought Morse should be stirring by now.  He picked up one bony wrist and took his pulse.

“Hypotension. Low blood pressure. He could stand to gain a few pounds,” DeBryn said.

 

Thursday had thought so, too. He never knew what his meal situation had been at Clive Durrell’s, but it sounded as if Durrell has sometimes withheld food as another means of control. He was about to say something to that effect, but bit his tongue; he knew Morse wouldn’t like any speculation on that score.

 

“Well,” he said, instead, “at the rate he plows through Win’s shepherd’s pie, he’ll probably be there by Christmas. He can pack away near as much as Sam, when the mood is on him.”

 

The doctor’s face remained furrowed. Then he turned away to the counter.

Thursday bent over Morse’s unconscious form. He was eerily still. Thursday didn’t like it much; it was just like those early days, when Morse had carried himself about as a ghost. “Lad,” Thursday said, tapping at his face.

And then Thursday’s nostrils were burning with the scent of ammonia, and DeBryn was putting a cloth beneath Morse’s face.

 

“Doctor!” Thursday said, an instant too late.

Morse’s eyes flew open in shock, and Thursday could see at once the fear there. 

In the next instant, Morse hurled himself forward in some sort of frenzy, throwing his arms up, as if to wrestle DeBryn away from him.

Thursday grabbed him by the shoulders before he could fly at the doctor.

“Morse!” he shouted, trying to turn him around, so that Morse could see his face.

Morse turned on him then, twisting and struggling under his grip.

“Morse, Morse! It’s just me, lad.”

 

He reached and took a hold of Morse’s face in one hand, cupping his jaw and chin to direct his gaze.  

 

“Look at me, lad!”

 

Morse froze, his blue eyes boring into his. Then, he seemed to sag. He was still breathing hard, but it was as if all the fight had gone out of him.

 

“What.... ?” he began. His big eyes were roving around the room, as if he was determining where the hell he was and how he had gotten there. “What’s happened?”

“We’re at the mortuary, Morse. You passed out. During the autopsy.”

Morse moaned quietly, as if remembering the sight that had that sent him over the edge, and put his hand to his forehead.

 

DeBryn was taking in the scene, frowning, and Thursday cast him a look over Morse’s shoulder. Then the doctor nodded, understanding at once the message there.

 

 _I’ll_ _tell_ _you_ _in_ _a_ _minute_.

 

“A glass of water, I think,” DeBryn said. “Dehydration tends to compound hypotension.”

Morse made no reply; he just sat there, slumped, cradling his head in his hands.

 

The doctor went into the next room, and Thursday, keeping half an eye on Morse through the doorway, followed.

DeBryn turned on the tap to let the water run cold, and under the cover of the sound, Thursday murmured, “The cloth. Morse said, when he was abducted, that Durrell came up behind him and put a cloth to his face. With something that smelled sweet.”

“Chloroform,” DeBryn said.

“That’s what it sounded like to me, yeah,” Thursday said.

“Mmmmm,” DeBryn said, in that way of his he had when he didn’t feel inclined on weighing in on something one way or another.

“What?”

“Nothing,” DeBryn said. Then he shook his head. “I just can’t help but wonder... when I arrived at the crime scene this morning, he certainly didn’t look in top form. Considering the trauma of his past, the police force doesn’t seem the most obvious career choice.”

 

He filled a glass, then, at the sink. Thursday said nothing. He had to admit, he had wondered the same thing, but the lad seemed so determined, he didn’t have the heart not to let him try. God only knew he had had enough discouragement in life to be getting on with, without him adding to the heap.

 

DeBryn carried the glass back in to Morse. At his approach, Morse raised his head from his hands and looked at the glass suspiciously, as if loath to drink from a vessel that had been stored in such a place.

“It’s a clean glass, Morse,” DeBryn said.

Morse took it then, closed his eyes and drank it down. He took a deep breath, and, when he handed the glass back, he did seem to look better, have a bit more color in his face.

“He’ll be all right, then?” Thursday asked.

“I’d take him for a bit of lunch. Get his blood sugar up a bit.”

“All right. We had been planning on the Lamb and Flag at one before we f....”

 

Well, best not to talk about it right now.

 

“Morse?” Thursday asked.

Morse scrubbed his face with his hands.

“Do you think you can get up, lad?”

Morse looked down at his legs, as if surprised to see them sprawled out before him on the sofa.

“Oh. Yes. Of course. Sorry. I don’t know . . . I don’t know quite what happened.”

“Well, better heads than yours, eh? You aren’t the first to feel a bit shaky at an autopsy. And you won’t be the last. Come on, then. Let’s see what Win’s got for us, yeah?”

“It’s luncheon meat,” Morse said at once.

“That so? We’ll just have to see if you are right, I suppose. Come on, then.”

Morse worked his lanky frame up off the couch. It seemed a lot of work, those arms and legs all akimbo. Finally, he seemed to right himself.

“All right then, constable,” Thursday said. “Doctor.”

DeBryn nodded. “Inspector. Morse.”

*********

At the Lamb and Flag, Morse didn’t look much better, truth be told. He had started to take a few bites of his sandwich, to look a little less faint, when Fancy came bobbing in, a wide smile under his dark fringe.

“Sergeant Jakes said you might be here,” he shouted from half-way across the room.

Morse had started to raise half of his sandwich to his mouth, but, at Fancy’s hail, he froze in mid-motion, his face falling, looking resigned.

Fancy collapsed in a heap in the chair next to Morse. “You all right, Morse?  Blimey. Were you out for the count.”

“I’m fine,” Morse said testily.

“Mind you, that was a sight, wasn’t it? It was terrible enough, going into that flat, but . . . that. How does DeBryn stomach it?”

“I suppose he manages, seeing as he’s a pathologist,” Morse said.

Fancy shuddered. “Well. Better him than me. Hey, what do you have there by the way?”

“It’s Tuesday. It’s luncheon meat. Don’t you have that paperwork to finish up? About that car theft on Turl Street?” Morse said, pointedly.

“He’s got time for lunch, Morse,” Thursday countered.

”Yeah. What a day, eh?” Fancy agreed. “I’m famished.”

 

Morse was looking as if the day had had quite the opposite effect on him. He glanced at Fancy, who was eyeing his sandwich.

 

“I’m not particularly hungry. You can have the other half,” Morse said.

“None of that now,” Thursday said. “He can have half of mine. You’re to eat that. Doctor’s orders.”

Morse huffed at that. “ _I_  wasn’t given any doctor’s orders.”

“No.  _I_  was,” Thursday said in a voice as firm as granite.

“Well. I certainly don’t need to be discussed in the third person,” he said. Then his eyes drifted over to the bar. “Do you want a pint? I’m getting one.”

“What?” Fancy asked, incredulously. “Are you actually buying?”

“Today is your lucky day,” Morse said dryly, sliding out of the booth.

 

Once Morse returned to the table, holding the three pints in a triangle formed by both hands, he sat down and tipped his head back to begin draining his tankard. Fancy watched in wide-eyed admiration at the rate  with which he managed to empty his glass.

 

“Oy! Mind how you go,” Thursday said. 

But Morse kept his head tipped back until the glass was completely empty. Then, he set it smartly on the table.

 

“I feel better now,” Morse announced.

“I’ll bet,” Fancy laughed.

“Just like you felt better when you were at that party at Lake Silence?” Thursday asked. “And then ended up emptying your stomach in Win’s hollyhocks? You want to slow it down a little.”

 

Fancy’s face lit up like a firecracker. “What? Morse got invited to one of those Lake Silence bashes? And got plastered? How the hell did you end up there?”

 

It was hard to tell which of the three things surprised Fancy more: that Morse should have a connection to anyone living at Lake Silence, that he had once been invited to any party at all, or that he had ever let his guard down enough to have become the bobbing wreck that Thursday had found the next day in his drive.

 

“I know some people who live there,” Morse said. “From when I was up.”

“Up?” Fancy asked frowning. “You were at Oxford? When?”

“Before you were born,” Morse said. He looked in his empty glass and shook his head. “I need another,” he said, and shuffled back out of the booth to head to the bar.

Thursday watched with narrowed eyes as he went.

 

****

At dinner, Morse sat in his usual corner, trying his best to follow Thursday’s lead, but Joan picked up on his crumpled expression at once.

“Well, you look done in with the day,” she said, “What happened to you?”  

“Hat stand, Joan,” Morse replied.  

Joan widened her eyes in surprise and laughed.  “Don’t you ‘hat stand,’ me. You aren’t my father.”

Morse flicked him an uncertain look. “Your father wouldn’t want me to talk about it.”

“Well,” Joan said, smartly. “Maybe he should.”

“That’s enough, now,” Thursday said. “Mind your Ps and Qs.”

“We are all adults now, dad,” Joan said. “And Morse isn’t you. Why shouldn’t he tell us what happened, if he wants to? It’s not as if he takes up more than his fair quotient of talk around this place.”

She turned, knowingly to Morse. “You sure you don’t want to talk about it? You might feel better if you do.”

 

Morse looked down and scrubbed the curls at the back of his nape. Sam had paused, fork held midair, as if he was watching a tug-of-war match down at the fair.

 

It was his sensible Win, who, as usual, said the right thing to break the tension. “Now, Joanie, don’t make Morse to feel as if he’s being pulled in two different directions.”

“Here, here,” Thursday said.

“If Morse wants to tell us,” she added, casting Thursday a pointed glance, “I’m sure he realizes he’s at perfect liberty to talk to us any time he likes.”

Joan smirked.

Thursday scowled.

Morse bent his head and shoveled potatoes into his mouth, avoiding eye contact with everyone.

*******

Thursday sat in his chair reading the newspaper, but somehow, he couldn’t get through a single article. Somehow, he felt he had to keep reading the same paragraph again and again.

He kept thinking about all the details of the day.

Perhaps Joan had a point. Perhaps Morse  _had_  wanted to talk. He replayed their lunch that afternoon at The Lamb and Flag, remembering how Morse’s face fell when Fancy came in calling for them. At the time, he just thought that the lad was feeling stretched thin, not feeling up to Fancy’s relentless and upbeat exuberance.

But perhaps it was because they had been interrupted? Perhaps he had wanted to talk to him alone?

 

Ah, bugger it.

 

Thursday cast his paper aside in a heap and headed up the stairs, down the hall until he reached the last door, which, as ever, stood half open.

Thursday gave a gentle knock.

 

“Yes?” Morse called.

 

Thursday opened the door and came to stand in the doorway. Morse had the bedside lamp on, lighting up one painted tree filled with blue and yellow birds, while the rest of his wooded dreamworld lay in twilight shadow.

Morse himself was on his knees in front of his record player, just getting ready to set the needle on a record.

“All right, lad. Let’s have it.”

“What?”

“You’ve been as prickly as a holly hedge all damn day. You’re churning over something.”

Morse set the needle back on the stand and sank back on his haunches, turning his head away.

Thursday sighed.

But then, just as he thought to give up, Morse said, quietly, “She ran up to me. Judy Kirche. When Fancy and I found her in the road.”

“Yeah?” Thursday prompted softly.

“She put her hands on my lapels as if she was clinging on for dear life. But .... there wasn’t much I could do, was there? I was too late. Nothing I could do would save her friend.”

 

Thursday scowled. He wondered sometimes, if Morse didn’t have the wrong idea about what it meant to be a copper, all along.

 

He had seemed to base his wish to become a police officer on some memory he had of Thursday coming to visit him in hospital, some idea that the police had saved him from that prison of a house.

Yes, they had found him and brought him to hospital. Yes, they had discovered Morse in time to save him. 

But, surely, Morse had noticed that there were nine others that night for whom they had been too late.

Or perhaps he hadn’t realized. It was difficult to tell what Morse’s thoughts might have been during that time. He seemed, those first few days, as if he was slowly awakening from some dreamlike state, as if he had lived in his head for so long that he had forgotten how to live in the world.

He startled at every sound, yet he himself was utterly silent, speechless. He woke up in the night, filling pages with numbers and equations, like a sleepwalker, and didn’t quite seem to know why.

Perhaps it had all been a fog, that night, those first days. He hadn’t, perhaps, had the ability at the time to take the whole of the situation in.

 All he had really known was that he was free from that white room, that he was frightened, that there were shadows and screams, and then someone had rescued him.  

 

Thursday stood in the doorway, considering him.

 

“How could you have known that that would happen?” Thursday asked, at last. “You can’t save everyone, Morse. You’re a copper. Not some comic book super hero with telepathic powers. All you can do is offer what comfort you can, and do your best to see to it that justice is done, that it doesn’t happen again.”

“But _how_ can we be sure it doesn’t happen again? We’ve nothing much to go on, do we? How can we stop a person when we don’t have a lead or a motive . . . or ... or anything?”

“We’ll sort it out. Best thing you can do to help Judy Kirche and Alice Heverstone now is to get some sleep. Get that brain of yours working full power in the morning.”

Morse looked up, sharply. “You’ll let me help? You’ll let me help with the CID?”

“Why not? Faster to consult you than to call someone from over at the colleges, if this is some academic’s sick little game. I’m planning to talk to Mr. Bright in the morning.”

“Sir,” Morse said. His face looked pained, still, but slightly heartened.

 

It was a sad thing to see, how the tiniest trace of faith shown in the lad seemed affect him. Sometimes, Thursday wished when he had been up in Lincolnshire, he had thrown that old bastard Cyril Morse just one clean punch, right to the jaw.

 

“Now, don’t stay up too late now, right?”

Morse shrugged. “Don’t know how we’re supposed to sleep after a day like today.”

“That’s why we leave it at the hallway stand,” Thursday said.

 

Morse looked up, sharply.

 

“Didn’t you know that, Morse? The hat stand rule isn’t for them. Not really. It’s for us.”

 

Morse looked at him in surprise for a moment. Then his face grew solemn, and  he nodded, as if he understood.

 “I hadn’t thought of it like that,” he said.

“So,” Thursday said bracingly. “Try counting sheep. Or if that fails, just look at your walls and count the birds till your eyes get heavy.”

Morse quirked a smile. “All right, sir.”

“All right, then. See you in the morning,”

Thursday half-closed the door then, leaving it cracked at the angle that Morse seemed to like it, and headed back down to his paper.

As he started down the hall, he heard the soft strains of an aria, wafting quietly from the room.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little romance for Morse... a little confusion for poor Thursday....

Gradually, the whiteness brightened, almost as if the half-forgotten sun was streaming into his eyes, and Morse woke, bolting upright in his bed with one soft gasp.

 

And it _was_ the sun. He was in his room, at the Thursdays’.

 

Even after all of these months, it still came as a bit of a shock; he still felt a sharp moment of vertigo, to wake to a lightening room and to see a mural of painted winding branches and gliding birds rather than stark numbers on walls of white.

 

It was difficult to believe that it was over, that that man was gone, that he wasn’t dreaming, that his new life was real.

 

Morse leaned back, closed his eyes and stretched luxuriously across the length of the bed, basking in the feel of the warm light glowing in his window.

It was something so deceptively simple, yet also something he once thought he would never feel again.

He used to sleep at odd hours, at every opportunity, just to get away from it all for a while . . . . until the monotony of his dream life and his waking life fused into one unending loop. 

 

Morse had begun to realize that, by the time Thursday had found him, he must have been a bit mad. He had given up all hope by then, to the point that his mind felt like it was filled with only so much white noise, like a hum of static. It was as if he had to tune out even his own thoughts in order to endure. He stopped speaking. He stopped playing music through his head. He simply worked through the equations, allowing himself to feel nothing. He was utterly numb. He did what he was told.

When had that happened, exactly? Was it sometime during the very first year he had been imprisoned there? During the third? Not until the last few months of his captivity?

Morse didn’t know. Sometimes he wished he did. Other times, he was glad he didn’t.

 

Morse shook his head, trying to toss the thought away.

There were just so many things to think about now, that was all; sometimes, it was a bit overwhelming. After years of emptiness, it was difficult, at times, riding the waves of all of his new and conflicting emotions, navigating the crests and crashes of his new life away from the hush of the small white room.

 

 

It had been two weeks since Alice Heverstone had been found murdered in her flat. And every lead had gone cold.

No one in the building had seen anyone out of the ordinary, no one had heard a thing.

It seemed unfathomable that he, Morse, who once had given up all hope, should be waking up here, in a house that felt so much like a home, whereas Alice, who by all accounts had every reason to hope, should be gone, killed on a quiet Tuesday, denied all second chances. And nothing at all had been done about it, nothing had been done to bring her killer to justice, nothing had been done to try to make it right.

 

Morse felt a hollowness somewhere in his heart at the thought of it. A hollowness that rested uneasily beside an odd flutter of anxiousness.

 

He wasn’t quite sure how he was doing in his new career. He certainly hadn’t managed to help with the Heverstone case. The connections between her death and the theft of the Rossetti were clear, but it was a closed circle; none of the connections pointed outside of it, to who the culprit behind the crimes might be.

 

And so many of them at Cowley knew about his past. Jakes and Strange. And he suspected, DeBryn.

Strange seemed willing to give him a chance, but Jakes? Jakes seemed to blow hot and cold with him, his attitude shifting with the turning of his rolling moods. And DeBryn. Well, it was clear that the doctor didn’t think much of him. And why should he? When he had fainted right in front of . . . Oh, god . . .

 

Morse shook his head again, chasing the thought away.

 

And then, to top all, today was his birthday.

Morse sighed.

He understood that a birthday celebration was something that Mrs. Thursday wanted to give him. He understood that she liked to feel as if she was shepherding him on towards a normal life, that a birthday party was just another step in that direction.

But she didn’t understand, that even in his old life—the one before his life in the white room with the skeletal sevens—he hadn’t been one to celebrate his birthday much, either.

 

He felt like it would all be too much. His father had always taught him not to have too many expectations. That pride goeth before that fall. Proverbs 16:18.

 

And then, the idea of seeing Tony again set his stomach flipping in yet another direction.

Morse hadn’t spoken to Tony since the day that he had told him the truth about his lost five years.

He had put off calling him, feeling he might combust with embarrassment even at the sound of his voice, but Mrs. Thursday had seemed so disappointed that he hadn’t asked him to the house for his birthday tea; it seemed important to her for Morse to have at least one friend there to mark the occasion, as if she wanted assurance that her child wasn’t the most unpopular one in the play-park.

 

Morse had been filled with trepidation as he had dialed the number, but there seemed to be a restrained hint of relief in Tony’s voice when Morse had told him who it was.

Morse should have known: sometimes we come to resent the people to whom we tell our darkest secrets, wishing we could take our words back again. Surely, Tony suspected that after the spectacle he had made of himself when last they met, Morse would be keen to avoid him at all costs.

 

Well. He wasn’t far wrong.

 

Tony seemed happy enough to come to the concert and to the house afterwards. What he would do all evening with the Thursdays, however, was another matter. It difficult to imagine—sort of like picturing an orchid on a windowsill overflowing with a cheery collection of hearty potted geraniums.

 

“Morse! Better take your chance!” Sam called.

Morse sprung up and headed to the bath. Experience had taught him to get there early, before Joan did, if he wanted the chance to shave without slipping up, startled by sharp knocks on the door.

 _That_ was something at least—his friendship with Joan and Sam had been one thing that was simple and easy. He couldn’t even tell if Thursday had told them the truth about his past or not, even though Morse had told him it would be all right if he did—as far as Morse could tell, they treated him no differently.

 

Morse thought they might walk around him as if on eggshells, but, no, when he went into the hall, there was Joan in her robe, looking as if she was ready to make a dash for the bathroom door. It was as if they were in an old Western, facing one another down the hall, preparing for the draw. 

But Morse was faster. He ran through the door of the bath and closed it behind him.

 

”I hope you do realize,” Joan said from the hallway outside, “that I’m only letting you get away with that because it’s your birthday.”

 

***********

 

Morse came into the station to find Fancy running his hands frantically through his hair. 

“I’m so behind on all of this paperwork now, I’ll never get it straight,” he cried.

Morse grimaced. He had a feeling he'd be doing it in the end; he wasn't sure if he was doing Fancy any favors or not, but there it was. 

 

"Morse! Fancy!" came a booming voice from the other side of the room. 

It was Inspector Thursday. Fancy sat bolt upright, smoothing his fringe and straightening the chaos of papers at his desk. It wasn't often someone from the CID came downstairs into their part of Cowley station; if they were wanted, usually uniform was summoned up to _them_. 

 

Morse frowned. He had just parted from Thursday and Jakes in the station’s front lobby. Could something have happened already?

 

"We got a call in from the Ashmolean. Nightwatchman was found this morning, knocked out and stowed behind some rubbish bins." 

"Is he . . . ?" Morse began. 

"He's fine," Thursday said tersely. "Just a bump on the head. But a painting's been stolen, it seems, sometime in the night." 

"Do you think it’s him again?” Fancy asked. 

“I don’t know," Thursday said. 

 

 ***************

 

Morse and Fancy followed Jakes and Thursday up wide stone steps and past four towering ionic columns to the doors of the Ashmolean. A curator was waiting for them right inside the entryway, along with a rather dispirited looking middle-aged watchman.

“Dr. Copley-Barnes, curator of the nineteenth century collection,” the first man said, by way of an introduction.

He eyed Thrusday haughtily. “Since you’re wearing a hat, one might presume that you are in charge?”

Thursday nodded, looking thoroughly nonplussed. “Detective Inspector Thursday, Thames Valley. So. What’s been stolen, exactly?”

“A painting from our Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood collection,” Copley-Barnes said. “‘Ferdinand Lured By Ariel.’ By John Everett Millais. It was taken, evidently, sometime during the night. While our watchman was ... not watching, it seems.”

He cast a grim look at the watchman, an unassuming man with a balding pate.

The older man took umbrage with that at once. “It wasn’t that I was not watching. Someone knocked me out, they did,” he said.

 

“Knocked you out?” Thursday asked sharply, and Morse knew just what he was thinking. According to Dr. DeBryn, Alice Heverstone had also been struck in the head by her assailant.

“That’s right,” the guard said. “I was just coming down the hallway from the Asian textiles exhibit, when someone up and knocked me across the back of the head. By the time I came to, it was nearly dawn.”

Jakes’ deep-set eyes flickered at his words. “You don’t think he could have meant to . . .? ” he asked.

 

And Morse understood at once. Had the art thief meant to kill the guard, had he meant to commit a murder after stealing the painting, as presumably he had killed Alice Heverstone after stealing “The Blessed Damozel?”

But Morse thought not; it didn’t fit the pattern.

 

“No,” Morse said. “He doesn’t look like Ferdinand, or Ariel, for that matter.”

“Jesus,” Jakes said.

And it _was_ a disturbing thought—murder was terrible enough as it was—but the idea that one might be spared and another targeted for death merely on the basis of his or her resemblance to a figure in a painting was even more distressing, more twisted somehow, than a simple crime of passion.

 

Dr. Copley-Barnes narrowed his eyes. Doubtless, he had no idea where they were going with this line of inquiry.

“No. Mr. Milton certainly bears no resemblance to the prince of Naples. Well-spotted, Constable,” he said, tartly.

“So? What’s this painting all about, then?” Fancy asked. “Ferdinand lured by who?”

“Ariel,” Morse said. “It depicts a scene from Shakespeare’s play, _The_ _Tempest_. Ferdinand, the prince of Naples, is shipwrecked on an island, one ruled by Prospero, the deposed Duke of Milan, who is also a magician. Ferdinand is  lured away from his companions by a sprite, Ariel, at Prospero’s bidding.”

 

“Well,” Jakes snorted. “There are certainly no sprites or princes of Naples to be found in Oxford, having a pint down at the Eagle and Child.”

 

“No,” Morse conceded. He pulled at his ear and thought for a moment about the painting. Of Ariel, painted green so as to blend into the grass and trees, so as to seem nearly invisible. Of Ferdinand, struggling to hold onto his hat, as Ariel pulls it away, so that the prince can better hear his song.

Could there be a clue in the song?

 

Morse slowly began to recite it, thinking over each phrase.

 

“Full fathom five thy father lies;  
Of his bones are coral made;  
Those are pearls that were his eyes;  
Nothing of him that doth fade,  
But doth suffer a sea-change  
Into something rich and strange.   
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:  
Ding-dong.  
Hark! now I hear them — Ding-dong, bell.”

 

“Do you see anything in it, Morse? Perhaps someone’s been drowned?” Thursday asked at once.

“No,” Morse said. “That would have been Ferdinand’s father. And he wasn’t really drowned.”

 

 Jakes huffed a laugh. “I can’t see how that charming little ditty has got anything to do with _anything_.”

 

Dr. Copley-Barnes, meanwhile was looking at the lot of them with a face fraught with impatience.

“Well-spotted _and_ well-recited, Constable,” he drawled. “It’s nice to see that the Hendon curriculum ensures that _some_ smidgen of culture filters down to the masses.”

He turned to Jakes, then. “And well-deduced, sergeant.  It seems, Inspector Thursday, as if your men are certainly earning their pay. I don’t see how this is helping to recover the painting at all. Or how it will help get a set of vulgar and persistent Americans from breathing down my neck.”

“Americans?” Thursday asked. 

“The painting is owned by an American collector, who had left it on loan to the National Gallery, who had, in turn, lent it to us. Now they all want to know where the damn thing is. You know what ‘personalities’ these people can be. I don’t need another Chesapeake-Leopold affair on my hands, on top of everything else.”

 

Morse looked at the man and smirked. “That analogy isn’t very _apt_ , now, is it?”

 

Dr. Copley-Barnes looked at him as if he could scarcely believe a mere PC in uniform would dare to address his most august person.

“I beg your pardon?”

 

“Well, you said the Americans curators were plaguing you about the theft. In the Chesapeake-Leopold Affair, it was Britain who was the aggressor, wasn’t it?”

He punctuated the sentence with a soft snort, just as he had so often seen men of the curator’s ilk do.

 

Jakes looked down. And Morse was sure it was to hide a smile.

 

“But Jakes is right,” Morse said.

Jakes looked up at once.

“It has nothing to do with the play,” Morse clarified. “It must have something to do with the painting itself.”

He closed his eyes, and he could almost imagine it, the overbearing distinctiveness of each blade of grass in the painting.

“It was Millais’ first attempt at the _plein_ _air_ style, painting out of doors to better capture the details found in nature. He wrote to his friend, Homan Hunt, another painter about it. ‘You will find it very minute, but not near enough to nature. To paint it as it ought to be would take me a month a weed,’ is what he said.”

“So?” Jakes asked.

“So,” Morse said. “He painted it outside, Millais. He painted it in Shotover Park.”

 

******

The park was quiet for such a perfect crisp and blue and cloudless late September day. There was no sign of violence, none of struggle. Thursday looked toward the thick of trees behind the great country house and nodded grimly.

"We’ll comb the woods," Thursday said. "I want everyone walking two feet astride through those trees back there." 

Slowly, the haphazard group formed themselves into a line, and they began walking, over roots and holes, searching for any dropped buttons or weapons or pieces of paper or . . . bodies that might be concealed in the tangle of grasses, leaves, roots and vines. 

Morse moved cautiously, step by step, hoping, for once, that he had the wrong answer, hoping to find nothing.

 

And then, someone blew a whistle.

 

In the distance, Morse could see DeBryn, heading over to the scene, his field kit in his hand, and Thursday, cutting through the thin trees with his purposeful strides.

 

“Morse!” Thursday called.

 

Stupidly, Morse looked behind him for a moment, as if someone else might claim the name. And then he slowly headed over. Fancy, as if in solidarity, trailed along in his wake.

 

The other PCs watched him as he passed, looking as if, even though he had been singled out, called over personally by the Inspector, they didn't much envy him.

 

The grasses and leaves made a sound like a light rustle around his feet, but other than that, it was so silent that Morse could hear the thumping of his heart. His fear was twofold—he was afraid of what he might see, and he was afraid that, once he saw it, he might pass out again, right here before a crowd of people, and be irrevocably disgraced.  

 

Finally, he drew near the embankment were Jakes and Thursday stood. He kept his eyes trained on them; he didn't look down to where he could see Dr. DeBryn, in his peripheral vision, kneeling beside something in the grass.

"Morse, we want to know if you think this man resembles the man in the painting," Thursday said. 

Jakes was staring down the embankment in disbelief. "He’s in some sort of Renaissance get-up, for God’s sakes,” he said, the disgust clear in his voice.

 

Morse hesitated.  DeBryn seemed like a well-rounded and well-read man. Certainly _he_ could tell them. 

 

"I'm sure Dr. DeBryn would be able to tell you, if there are any similarities,” Morse said crisply.

“The Pre-Raphaelites aren’t exactly my thing," DeBryn said. "A tad hyperbolic, aren’t they?”

 

Morse had no rejoinder to that. It seemed as if would have to look, then. 

“You know, you won’t make much of a detective, if you aren’t prepared to look death in the eye," DeBryn said. 

 

And he was right.

But he hadn't though of that, had he? He hadn’t thought of any of it. He had only wanted to be a police officer out of some idea he had of being like Inspector Thursday, of helping others to feel the way Thursday had made him feel when he had come to see him in the stark whiteness of the hospital—that there really was a way out of it all, out of both the prison he had been held in and the prison he had made in his own mind, as if everything might actually be all right.

An idea of a policeman that Morse now recognized to be so simple as to be straight out of a child's storybook. 

 

Morse took a deep breath, turned and looked down. 

The man was sprawled out in the grass; pointed dark beard, dark hair; he was wearing a doublet, too, a hell of a thing. Had the killer dressed him after he was dead, as if the corpse were some sort of grotesque doll?

This last thought brought a rise of bile to the back of Morse's throat. 

 

"Yes," Morse said, softly. "He looks just like Ferdinand. From the painting." 

"Shot," DeBryn was saying. "Almost point blank to the heart. The gunman left the weapon behind in the grass, it seems. Looks to be a Webley, a Mark VI, if you’re interested."

"455 Standard army issue," Morse said. 

"Not entirely a fool, then?" DeBryn said. 

"Morse was in the Army," Fancy said, defensively. 

 

Dr. DeBryn looked away at that and, for once, said nothing. And Morse understood.

Dr. DeBryn knew. He knew the truth about him. Morse knew he was there that night, but he had always hoped that the doctor had thought he was just one of the students, one of the members of the Moral Science Club. . . not that he was. . . .

Well, Inspector Thursday must have told him. Perhaps he thought he had to talk to _someone_ about him.

It was all right.

At least he knew now, where he stood in the doctor's esteem. And perhaps the doctor was right. He had no business here.  

And suddenly, he remembered his last thoughts before he had passed out at that party, on the cold tiled floor of Bixby's elegant bath. 

_Even his dreams were the dreams of a child:  that he would live in a room like a garden, that he would be a police officer when he grew up, that it would turn out that his father and Gwen weren't his real parents, that some other family would swoop down out of the sky and claim him, that his best friend would fall in love with him, and they would—what, exactly? —run away together and live in a treehouse?_

 

No. He had lost too much time. He’d never catch up, never find some space to occupy.

 *****************

“I don’t know why we’re doing this,” Morse said.

“Don’t you?” Thursday asked. “Well. I guess you better take a look at  paperwork, then. According to your file, today is your birthday.”

Morse scowled. “You know what I meant. Doesn’t it seem . . . callous to you, that we’re going off about our business, as if none of this is happening?”

  
“I’ve been a copper since you were in diapers. If I put my entire life on hold because of the things I’ve seen, I’d not gotten out the front door of my first bedsit up in the Smoke.”

”Hmmmm,” Morse hummed, unconvinced.

”I know it’s hard, not taking these things to heart. I’d be more worried if you didn’t, to be honest . . . . But you can’t let it get to you. He’ll be counting on that.”

Morse straightened the tie of his evening suit in the hallway mirror and sighed. “‘And somewhere the torturer’s horse scratches its innocent behind on a tree,’ I suppose." 

“Well,” Thursday said. “I don’t know about any horse’s behind, other than some yobs at County I know.”

Morse huffed a quiet laugh.

“Look, Win’s looking forward to giving you a special day. You wouldn’t want to take that away, would you?”

“No,” Morse said. “It’s just . . . "  

"Just what?" 

And there were a hundred things that he could have said.

I’m just not used to this sort of thing. It’s asking too much, hoping for too much. Proverbs 16:18.

 

But instead, he simply shrugged. "Nothing," he said. 

 ********

It wasn’t so very terrible.

Morse stood with the tenor section of the choir. Usually, at a concert, he didn’t pay much attention to the audience, allowing himself to get lost in the music, but this evening, things were different. It was odd, having people in the crowd, people he knew were looking for him amidst the faces of the choir—he wasn’t used to having someone of his own in the audience. The idea left him with a funny sort of stirring, warm and fluttering under his ribs. He felt he sang all the better for it, better than perhaps he ever had.

 

 

When the concert was over, he went to get his new music from the director, and then went to look for Tony, who was to drive him back to the Thursdays'. Morse had the idea that Mrs. Thursday and Joan wanted to get home ahead of him, to set up some sort of surprise for him. He was glad that he suspected something of that nature was coming: he was determined to be gracious, to not get flustered under the unaccustomed attention.

 

He found Tony, predictably enough, over at the bar, talking with a woman with sharp eyes and soft brown hair. Poor Tony had been the object of much female speculation after some woman's magazine ran a piece naming him as one of Britain's top ten eligible bachelors, but this woman, for one, appeared not to be flirting with him in the least—rather just the opposite: she looked no-nonsense, all business. 

 

“Constable Morse,” she said at once. “I loved your singing.”

She held out her hand. “Dorothea Frazil. Oxford Mail." 

"Hello," Morse said, uncertainly. 

"Your friend Lord Marston has been telling me a bit about you. It’s a good angle, the singing policeman. Better than anything I’ve got presently.”

 

Vaguely, Morse thought he saw where she was headed. It seemed the very last thing that he needed, on any number of levels.

“I have no wish to see my name in the papers, Miss Frazil,” Morse said, crisply. 

Miss Frazil huffed a rueful laugh. "Covering the local arts correspondent is never going to win me the Pulitzer. Besides, you sound like a real Renaissance man. I heard you do a bit of painting as well. An odd sort of copper, aren't you? Not a bad human interest piece." 

 

“ _What?_ Who told you that I paint?” Morse said.  

Tony, who had been leaning languidly against the bar, began to come to attention, as if understanding that he might have misstepped. "I did," he said, simply. “I always liked those things that you used to do when we were all up at my aunt’s.”

"Well," Morse said stiffly. "I have no talent. I merely dabble. As a hobby."

"Is that why they have you working on these last two art thefts?" Miss Frazil asked. "Word is, they might somehow be related to the murders in Jericho and at Shotover Park." 

"Whose word?" Morse asked sharply.

 

Surely such details should be being bandied about by the public? 

 

"Come on, one quote," Miss Frazil said. "I’ll see that there is something in it for you."

"Any such recompense would leave us both open to charges of bribery and corruption," Morse replied. "If you’ll excuse me. Good luck with your story." 

 

He spun on his heel at once, keen to get away. He couldn't help but imagine Jakes' face if such an article were to appear in the paper. It was as if he was a piece on a checkerboard, one that kept getting pushed back and back in the wrong direction. 

 

“Constable!" a voice shouted, with an urgency that made Morse to look up.

 

And there it was: a flash of white light in his face, blinding him for a moment before he saw the photographer there. 

Morse's heart lurched. This was happening, then. It was too late now. Already, he could imagine the quips Jakes might make; how could he not, with such fodder? 

And what else had he been expecting? He was doomed, it seemed to be a misfit wherever he went.

But was it too much, was it Proverbs 16:18, was it childish to hope that there might be some space for his _somewhere_? Somewhere beside a small white room with skeletal sevens and . . . .

 

Morse burst through the doors and took a deep breath of the cold night air, looking up into the dome of stars, at the unchanging patterns of constellations.

He was free and he wasn't alone, he was rattling around on the planet, rattling around under the shimmer of starlight that fell on one and all. And why _shouldn't_ he find his place, the point on the plane meant only for him, same as anyone else?  

It would be alright. He would solve the case. He would stop the next Icarus from falling out of the sky as a delicate ship sailed calmly on. 

 

Tony stopped beside him and looked up at the sky, taking a sharp drag on his cigarette. 

"Nice night," he said. 

 

 ******************

Morse got into the passenger’s seat of Tony’s ridiculously ostentatious Egyptian blue car and closed the door, tossing his new music onto the backseat.

"So," Tony said, sliding into the driver's seat and cranking the key in the ignition. "I take it you’re not fond of the press? I thought journalists and coppers helped one another out. They're always doing so in films, at any rate." 

“Why would you tell her that? That I paint?” Morse asked. 

Tony looked bemused. “Why shouldn’t I? What’s wrong with that?”

 

In Tony’s world, nothing. But in Morse’s world ...

 

Morse put a hand to his forehead and shook his head. “They’ll never let me hear the end of it, down at the nick. The Singing Constable. The Policeman Picasso. Oh, god.”

“What?” Tony asked slowly, as if finally cottoning on. “Do you find it difficult, getting along with the other officers?”

”Oh no. I’m the life and soul of the party,” Morse said, caustically.   

 

Tony laughed merrily at that. “Like you were at Bixby’s?”

 

Morse turned away and looked out the window at once, hoping to hide the blush flooding his face.

The less said about that night, the better.

 

It wasn’t long before Tony was pulling smoothly into the Thursday’s drive. 

Morse was leaning in toward Tony, reaching behind his seat to retrieve his music from the back of the car, when Tony suddenly seemed to go quite still.

 

“What?” Morse asked. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Tony said. 

 

Then he was looking serious, his blue eyes watching him closely.  “I thought maybe that you were going to .... But I suppose you will have changed your mind again.”

Morse frowned, perplexed.

“About what you said at Bixby’s party?” Tony clarified. “Years ago, you led me to believe, otherwise, but, then at Bixby’s . . .”

 

Morse knew at once what Tony meant.

 

It happened in the first few months of their acquaintance, during a late fall weekend when they had all gone out to Tony’s aunt’s house in the country. Morse and Tony had found themselves alone one morning, out in one of the old rowboats they used sometimes for races.

Morse had turned to look over his shoulder, pulling at the oars, when he felt it: a cautious but deliberate brush of a hand at his temple, pushing back his hair and running along his jawline.

Morse had turned at once, startled.  It was a subtle gesture, but the meaning behind it was clear.

He had worried something like this might happen, had long sensed it in the offing. He had gotten the definite impression in those early weeks that Tony might be one of those posh people his father had so often warned him about. 

 

“ _You_ _had_ _best_ _keep_ _clear_   _of_ _that_ _blue_ - _blood_ _set_. _The_ _whole_ _lot_ _of_ _them_ _are_ _sodomites_.”

 

Morse had frozen, unsure as to what to do, while Tony’s eyes flickered coolly over his face.

”No?” he asked, as if he was reassessing him. There was a trace of a bemused smile on his face, the hint of a laugh, and Morse felt the tension in his stomach unclench.

”No,” he said.

And Tony had merely laughed, a warm thing, like the sun dancing over the rippling water.

Morse felt a cool wash of relief. There were to be no hard feelings, then—just the opposite. It wasn’t until after that day that Morse felt that they started to become real friends, having cleared the cloud of that question out of the way.

 

Until last summer, when Morse had brought it into play again. 

 

“I just wondered what were thinking,” Tony was saying. “What tune you were singing these days, on that score.”

“Ha ha,” Morse said.

“Well?” Tony asked.

“Well, you can’t just _ask_ me that,” Morse said.

“Can’t I? I thought it would make things a damn sight less awkward than leaving the question hovering about in the air.”

“But you . . . .You said you didn’t want me to .....” Morse ventured.

“I didn’t want you falling all over me as some sort of desperate last resort, no. Not when you were so much not yourself.”

“I think I was rather too much myself,” Morse said ruefully.

Tony gave him a rather severe look, as if he thought Morse was being maudlin.

“I simply thought that it was a little late in the game for me to play the role of a Saturday morning regret,” Tony said. “I didn’t mean not ever.”

”Oh,” Morse said.

”So?” Tony asked. “Which is it?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” Morse said. “I haven’t really . . . I haven’t thought about it.”

“Ouch. Well, same old Pagan. At least you’re honest.”

Morse scowled. He did have rather a lot on his mind to be getting on with.

 

But Tony knew that. He already knew everything. They had been friends for years—he knew about his family, about Susan, about his being sent down, about that man. And still, he was here, despite all of Morse’s many defeats and failures.

It was easy, being to be around Tony. Morse considered the sharp face, the laughing eyes. He was so reliably even-tempered, so even-keeled, in that stiffly English way that upper-crust people so excelled at.

 

 That morning, when Morse had first awoken to the streaming sun, his mind had been buzzing, a torrent of thoughts.

What might it be like to shut that down for a bit? To forget to think and to allow himself only to feel?

He would never speak of it, but it _had_ been a relief that day, sitting on the floor of Tony’s study, resting his head against the warmth of his chest.

 

Morse sat, his thoughts spiraling in circles. He wasn’t sure what to say. Or if he wanted to say anything. 

 

Instead, he closed his eyes and leaned forward, leaving his lips slightly parted. And this time, instead of bumping against the edge of Tony’s turning jawline, Morse’s mouth landed firmly against Tony’s.

Once he made point of contact, something low in his belly tightened; he realized he just wasn’t sure what to do next, as if his mind hadn’t yet caught up with his body.

 

But it was no matter: Tony’s first few kisses were achingly slow and tentative, as if he was giving him the time to catch up.

It was just all so new, so different—far different from kissing Susan. Tony’s lips were soft but firm, and he tasted like French cigarettes dulled with the sweet tang of expensive Scotch. Morse moved in closer, wonderingly, and as he did, his bottom lip grazed just a trace of stubble at the side of Tony’s mouth, a burn that coursed through him with a delicious shiver.

Tony seemed to feel the way he trembled under him and took the chance to press in more forcefully, parting Morse’s lips for kisses now skimming on the edge of passion. The tightness low in Morse’s gut unclenched, unwound, and Morse felt himself go limp under Tony’s caresses.

And it was such a relief, so easy just to let someone else take command, to let someone else do the thinking —so different again, from kissing Susan, with whom he always had to worry where to put his hands, about what was too much or too little.

Morse felt as if he were melting, and Tony pressed in closer, soldering their bodies together. The gear shift must have surely been digging into his ribs, but Tony didn’t seem to mind. Morse’s hands ran up through Tony’s hair, and Tony responded with another deep kiss, one so thorough as to unravel Morse completely, leaving him humming into his mouth with approval.

 

And then Morse broke away.

My god.

They were in the Thursdays’ drive of all places. What was he doing?

What had he done?

He had just kissed his best friend. Surely there were any number of things wrong with that sentence.

It was a terrible idea when he thought about it. Although it hadn’t _felt_ like it....

 

Morse suddenly realized that Tony was scrutinizing his face. He must have looked like a proper idiot, he must look as if he’d been clubbed over the head with a blunt object.

“Hmmmm?“ Tony asked.

But Morse said nothing. His heart was still racing; he still felt as if his legs would be wobbly beneath him when he tried to stand.

Tony was looking at him, expectantly. “You needn’t overthink _everything_ , Pagan.”

 

And he knew that, of course, he knew that. 

“I know,” Morse managed at last, and his voice was rough, as if he hadn’t spoken in years.

 

They sat for a moment in silence, and then Tony looked at him shrewdly. “Or perhaps you do,” he said.

 

Morse still said nothing.

Then Tony laughed and said, “So, a definite maybe, then?”

And then, before Morse could think to answer, Tony swung himself out of the car.

 

*****

“Are they here yet?” Win called, flitting about between the kitchen and the dining room.  “I felt certain that I heard Tony’s car. I want to have all the candles lit so we can start singing as soon as Morse comes in.”

”I’ll go take a look,” Thursday said, rumbling down the hall and into the den. Thursday was sure he had heard it too, the distinctive hum of Donn’s swag of a car.

What was it he called the thing? Bluebell?

Thursday twitched open the lace curtains of the front window and looked out into the shadowed drive.

And .... what the hell?

It took Thursday a moment to register what he was seeing—Donn was draped almost diagonally, pressing Morse into the passenger seat, kissing him with an abandon that could be hardly dismissed as some sort of posh, continental peck on the cheek. 

 

Well, it was clear that the man was certainly pushing his advantage. 

Morse was nothing if not a confused soul.

The last thing he needed was some handsy bastard messing him about. It was a shame... he had hoped Morse might have at least _one_ friend in his corner....

But then Morse’s hands flew up into Donn’s hair and then to his shoulders, pulling him against him with obvious enthusiasm.

 

And Thursday didn’t know what to think.

What were the playing at? They certainly weren’t out at Lake Silence.

 

There was a hedge blocking one side of their drive, it was true, but anyone could be waking along, taking their dog out for a stroll along the sidewalk or putting their rubbish bins out to the curb.

 

Well, it would be awkward as hell, but he couldn’t see if they were giving him much of a choice, thrashing about like a pair of eels right in front of a copper’s  house. And what with Morse a serving officer to boot.

Thursday was just getting ready to open the front door and break up the little love fest, when Morse abruptly pulled away, looking stunned, his big eyes wide, reflecting brightly in the yellow glare of the porch light.

 

Thursday snorted.

Too right.

  

Thursday stepped back from the window right at the moment that Morse and Donn had each sat back in their own seat, putting a proper space between them. Once he saw that Donn was getting out of the car, once he was satisfied that they were done working their way towards getting themselves arrested for gross indecency right in his goddamned driveway, Thursday started back down the hall. 

 

“Are they here, then?” Win called. 

“You’ve outdid yourself, mum,” Joan was saying. “Morse is going to have the surprise of his life.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Thursday said, wryly. “I expect that honor’s been taken.”

”What’s that, Fred?”

”Nothing, love.”

 

He’d just have to talk with the lad, that was all. Maybe that sort of thing flew back when he was "up," but for a police constable? It just wasn’t on.

It was just as Dr. DeBryn had said: he was sharp as a tack, but a bit young for his age, maybe. A bit naive in understanding the ways of the world. And starved as he was from any sort of affection, deprived, really, of all human contact for five years, it was no wonder that Morse might respond to any scrap of attention thrown his way, without thinking things through.

Thursday shook his head. 

Would Morse ever learn just to get his head down and get along? Why did the lad always have to make everything.... so bloody  _difficult_ for himself?


	4. Chapter 4

Somehow, by common assent, they found themselves singing “Happy Birthday” at a slightly quicker tempo than what was typical of the song, as if to put Morse out of his misery.

The lad simply didn’t know where to look. Every now and then, he chanced a glance up at each of them, until he finally seemed to give up, keeping his eyes trained on the small globes of light tipping the candles on his birthday cake, instead.

He looked like such an awkward sod, sitting in his chair in the dining room corner, that it was difficult to tell who was the most relieved—Morse or the rest of them—when he blew the candles out in one go, and Sam was able to flip on the lights.

 

“It looks great,” Sam announced. “Let’s eat.”

“You really outdid yourself, mum,” Joan agreed, as Win carefully plucked the half-melted candles from the cake.

 

And it was true—Thursday hadn’t known that Win could decorate a cake like that; it looked like something right out of the bakery window.

It was as if the paintings on Morse’s walls had been redone in the form of icing and placed over a tall, round chocolate cake; green sugar vines draped their way across the top and over the sides of the confection, punctuated by bursting point-tipped leaves and birds with brush-frosting feathers.

 

“Judy and I took a class together,” Win explained. “This is my first attempt at putting it all together.”

“Well, it looks too pretty to eat, love,” Thursday said.

Sam frowned in concern at this.

“We are . . . we are going to eat it, aren’t we?” he asked.

 

Morse, meanwhile, was still looking somewhat stunned, but now pleasantly so—it was clear the lad hadn’t expected anyone to go to such an effort on his account. It led Thursday to wonder if, growing up, Morse’s stepmother had made him any sort of cake for his birthday at all.

Somehow, he doubted it.

 

“Thank you, Mrs. Thursday,” Morse said, in his low and mournful voice. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a cake like this.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Tony Donn said, laughing. “It looks a bit like one of your paintings—those pastorals you used to do out at my aunt’s—but even madder.”

 

Morse paused, the pleased blush across his face turning from pink to red.

 

Thursday tried to puzzle this comment out: Had Morse painted before, then? He supposed, when he thought about it, that something as elaborate as what Morse had done on the walls upstairs could not have popped out of nowhere.

But why would Tony think that the style reflected on the cake differed from Morse’s? Thursday thought that the icing designs were quite identical to those on Morse’s walls.

 

Perhaps, in the past, Morse’s paintings had been more sedate, more conventional? It would make sense, if his style had intensified, grown somewhat exaggerated since he had been freed from his captivity— as if he was trying, through hyper-vivid and surreal images of woods and fields, to make up for the five years he had spent in exile from such places.

 

Morse, meanwhile, was also mulling over Tony’s words, and his mouth twisted in disapproval.

“I wouldn’t say  _mad_ ,” he said, tersely.

 

Thursday paused to consider them: Morse looking cross, Tony happily oblivious.

It occurred to Thursday then, that Tony Donn was, first and foremost, one of the upper crust; he was accustomed to saying whatever came to him, just as easy as you please—So flip that lot could be, so self-assured as to the absolute rightness of their words and actions, that they seldom gave the import of them a second thought.

 

Whereas Morse was as prickly as a hedgehog.

 

Perhaps Thursday need not say anything much about what he had witnessed unfolding in his drive. Perhaps this little lark, this little crack at a friendship turned into some sort of oddball and mismatched romance, might just fold itself up again, might just die right on the vine, without him needing to say a single word about it.

 

“Here, Morse,” Joan was saying, then, handing him a cake knife. “It’s your birthday. You’re supposed to cut the cake.”

Morse took the knife and sliced one large piece, so that the cuts fell carefully around the wingspan of a large blue frosted bird.

 “You needn’t do it by quarters,” Joan remarked, laughing. “Don’t make the pieces  _so_  very big.”

“Well I didn’t want to cut the bird in half, did I?” Morse countered.

“I’ll take that piece,” Sam offered, sliding the plate in front of him.

*****

Thursday was sitting in his chair, reading the newspaper in the yellow lamplight, the rest of the house dark and silent with sleep, when he heard someone walking softly down the stairs.

Then Morse was there, in the doorway.

“Sir?”

Thursday lowered the paper, half folding it in his lap.

“I thought you lot had all gone to bed,” Thursday said.

“I was wondering if something was bothering you,” Morse ventured. “About the case. After we got back from the concert, you seemed . . . . I don’t know . . . . distracted. Has something else happened?”

“I had something on my mind, yeah,” Thursday admitted. “But not about the case.”

“Sir?” Morse asked.

 

Thursday sighed. Might as well get on with it.

 

“Win wanted to have the candles lit as soon as you came in the door. She thought she heard Tony Donn’s car pull up, but, as you weren’t coming in, I sort of manned the window, on lookout, as it were.”

 

Thursday could tell he need say no more; the flush of red that had crossed his face when Tony Donn had described the style of his cake as “mad” was back, and back in overdrive.

 

“Oh,” Morse said.

“Oh,” Thursday repeated. “So. What was all that about, eh?”

 

Morse looked alarmed at being asked to offer any explanation at all about incident.

 

And who wouldn’t be?

 

“Well,” Morse began, thoughtfully. “You’re the one always trying to tell me I should get along better with people.”

 

Thursday huffed a laugh. Trying to turn this one around on  _him_ , was he?

 

“I didn’t mean  _that_  well,” Thursday said. “And well you know it.”

Morse said nothing.

“I thought you were engaged before. To a girl.”

“I was,” Morse said, tersely.

“So?” Thursday prompted.

“I dunno,” Morse said. “I know I’m awfully awkward. I always was. And now I have this gaping hole, this five years. For the rest of my life, I’ll have to either hope it doesn’t come up, or I’ll have to lie about or it  . . Or I’ll have to  . . . . So . . .”

He stopped short then and shrugged.

“So what, then?” Thursday asked.

“So I just don’t know if someone like me can  _afford_  to rule out fifty percent of the population. That’s all.”

Thursday snorted. “That’s funny. I’d say just the opposite. I’d say that, as a standing police constable, you can’t afford to rule it  _in_.”

Morse looked slightly affronted. “I don’t see why it’s anyone’s business. What difference does it make, really?”

“You make it my business by carrying on in the drive, that’s what,” Thursday said. “And as for what difference there is . . . as observant as you are, it can’t possibly have escaped your notice that there’s quite a _bit_ of difference.”

Morse made a sour face of disapproval.

“You know what I meant,” Morse said. “If you care about the person, does it really matter, I don’t know . . . what the person looks like? A person might marry someone when one is young who will look quite different when they’re older. What does it matter?”

 

Thursday might have known Morse would give some answer like that. The lad lived so much in his head, it was just possible that he honestly didn’t get it. 

 

“So. Are you serious about this, then? Or is this just some lark? Because if you are, I hate to discourage you, but you really should rethink whether you want to stay with the police. A life in academia would be much more apt, much more accepting of such an . . . eh . . . arrangement.”

Morse looked slightly stricken at the idea that Thursday might suggest he leave the force when he had only just gotten started, but facts were facts—the lad needed to know what was what.

“I don’t know,” Morse said. “I mean. Tony already knows about it. All that.”

“So, it’s easy then, isn’t it? Already crossed that hurdle with Donn. Spares you having to jump it with someone else, has it?”

Morse shrugged.

“Does he know that? That that’s your reason?”

“It’s not  _all_  of the reason and . . . and I don’t care to discuss it. I don’t see you raking Joan or Sam over the coals.”

“If I looked out the window and saw them committing a crime, I would,” Thursday said.

Morse looked unimpressed.

“Yes, Morse. It’s a crime. On the books.”

“I don’t see how you can think it’s a  _crime_. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“Makes no difference what I think. I’m not a politician. I’m a copper. I don’t make laws. I just enforce them. So. Just don’t let me see that again,” Thursday said.

He picked his paper up to make it clear that was all he had to say on the subject.

He thought Morse might go back up the stairs, but, amazingly, he remained just where he was.

 

Thursday lowered the paper.

 

“I just wondered,” Morse said. “You said don’t let you  _see_. So are you saying I should not see Tony at all, or that you just don’t want to know about it?”

“Christ, Morse. You’re twenty-seven. I’m in no position to tell you that.”

“That’s what _I_ thought,” Morse said, with a hint of a laugh.  

“I don’t want to discuss this further.”

“Well, I never wanted to discuss it at all.”

“Good night, Morse,” Thursday said, pointedly, and buried his face again in the paper.

 

There was no point in it, trying to present an argument to Morse.

Somehow, Thursday felt as if Morse had led him in a circle, as if he had gotten nowhere.

 

**********

“Well, look who’s here,” Jakes called from the driver’s seat as Morse and Inspector Thursday came down the walk. “Cowley Station’s very own Renaissance man.”

Morse felt his heart sink.

Jakes could only be referring to that article.

Oh, god.

Morse slipped into the back seat, keeping his head ducked down, as if waiting for a sudden burst of rain to blow over.

“What’s this?” Thursday asked.

“Constable Morse and his golden pipes, charming audiences at Alfredus College,” Jakes said. “Perhaps I should snap on the radio, allow you to serenade us?” 

Jakes picked up a folded newspaper and whipped it back over the seat to Morse. Morse took it gingerly, as if it were a pot that had been left on the stove, whose handle might still be hot to the touch, and flipped it open.

There he was, right on the front page, looking stunned, like a deer in the headlights, with the headline, “Top of the Cops.”

 

Morse moaned. This Miss Frazil woman must certainly hate him. It was all there—that he sang with TOSCA, that he painted as a hobby . . . there was enough fodder here to keep them all going for weeks.

He looked out the window, determined to ignore whatever else Jakes might have to say, while Thursday, curious, reached back and took the paper.

“Mmmmn,” he rumbled. “Who told them all of this?” he said.

“Keep reading,” Jakes said, delightedly, “it all comes from his best friend from when he was ‘up,’ Lord Marston. Some pretty high circles for a PC to be running in. You sure you don’t need me to open the door for you, when we get to the station, m’lord?”

Morse kept his face turned away, looking out the window, and scowled.

“No,” he said.

 

And perhaps Thursday had a point—if Morse thought it unbearable that this information had been made public, how would it be if anyone got wind of what had passed between him and Tony?

Beyond unbearable.

It would be impossible.

 

“Or maybe his lordship would like to hear a spot of opera on the way in,” Jakes was saying, and then he flipped on the radio.

But instead of music, the smooth voice of the radio announcer came out over the Jag’s static-crackled front speakers.

 

_“I have received a heartfelt appeal for Frida Yelland, of Wantage, in Oxfordshire, to get in touch with her dad, Bernard. Dad says he loves you and misses you very much and just wants to know you’re all right.”_

 

“What’s this?” Morse asked sharply.

“Oh, yeah,” Jakes said. “Old man’s going from station to station, apparently. Came by Cowley last week, wanting us to track down his daughter. Girl’s free, white, single and over twenty-one. Probably run off with the milkman.”

 

Morse said nothing, but kept watch out the window, all of his concerns about Tony bursting like a soap bubble.

So.

This girl was gone.

A girl whose father was looking for her.

And it sounded as if no one was helping him at all.

 

“That’s probably what they said about me,” Morse said, quietly, at last.

“What?” Jakes asked, his deep-set eyes looking back at him in the rearview mirror. “That you had run off with the milkman?”

Morse could scarcely believe Jakes had said such a thing. Not when he knew.... he knew . . . 

Before Morse knew what he was doing, he hauled off and hit the back of the seat in front of him, hard, with the heel of his hand, jarring Jakes, making him to steer off-course, sending the Jag lurching toward the curb.

 

“Hey!” Thursday said. “Hey! Enough of that now.”

Jakes straightened the wheel, pulled smoothly up along the curb, and stopped the car. Then he turned around, his eyes sharp, his heavy brows soldered together in anger.

 “You want to make me hit a pedestrian?” he snapped. “This girl’s got nothing to do with you. Things happen in this world, Morse. Things happen and that’s just how it is. Got it? The whole bloody universe doesn’t revolve around you and your tales of woe.”

Morse scowled. “’Things happen?’ Why are you a police officer at all, if that’s what you think? Isn’t it your  _job_  to make certain ‘things  _don’t_  happen?’”

“You telling me how to do my job? I’m a DS. What are you? A PC for all of four weeks? I don’t know how you were even admitted, what with what must be a gaping hole in your work history.”

“Jakes,” Thursday said. “Enough of that.”

“It’s insubordination is what it is, sir,” Jakes said.

He turned back and rounded on Morse. “Did it ever occur to you, Constable Morse, that perhaps this girl doesn’t  _want_  to be found? Maybe she wants a fresh start?”

Morse frowned.

“No, it didn’t,” Jakes answered for him.  “Our job is to enforce the law. Not to turn Oxford into a bloody police state.”

But Morse would not be undaunted.

“Still, it would be the safer course to try to find her, surely. Find her, and make certain she’s all right. Instead of just assuming she’s run off.”

“Then you bloody well find her,” Jakes snapped. “In case it’s missed your notice, we’re in the middle of a murder spree.”

“I’m sure Morse is sorry, sergeant,” Thursday intoned. “Heat of the moment. Now let’s get into the station before I write the both of you up for being late for your shift.”

“I’m sure he’s not sorry,” Jakes muttered, starting up the car.

 

Morse said nothing more, eager to let the matter drop.

 

“You bloody well find her,” Jakes had said.

It was clear that the case of Frida Yelland would be one that Morse would have to take himself.

 

*******

By the time they reached the modest rowhouse that was the home of Frederico Perez-Lopez, the man who had been found dead in Shotover Park dressed in sixteenth-century garb, Jakes and Morse had reached an uneasy truce, neither bringing up the argument of that morning.

Thursday knocked on the front door, but there was no answer—no wife, no girlfriend, no housemate; no one came to greet them. After a respectful amount of time had passed, Jakes came up alongside of Thursday and butted the door open with his shoulder.

As soon as he did so, it was clear something was wrong. The creaking door put up more of a fight, put up a greater degree of resistance than the force of Jakes’ blow would seem to allow.

And one glance at the floor below revealed the reason why.

In the middle of the threshold, a small mound of envelopes was piled high— weeks’ and weeks’ worth of post that had been stuffed through the letter slot in the door and left to sit.

Thursday picked one of the letters up—an electric bill postmarked the second of September, a date nearly three weeks previous.

 

“He’s not been here. He’s not been here at all,” Thursday said, his voice low and meditative.

“If he wasn’t here, had he been abducted, held, then, somewhere before he was killed?” Jakes asked.

 

No one said anything, allowing the horror of the implication to set in. The killer might very well have taken his time with Frederico Perez-Lopez, holding him hostage somewhere, terrorizing him until finally killing him and leaving his body in the park.

And it had all happened right under their noses.

 

By unspoken agreement, the four of them—he, Thursday, Jakes and Fancy—made their way into the house, each going their separate ways, to see what they might find.

Morse wandered into a room in the back of the house, one lined with tall windows which let in the garden light. It was a small painter’s studio, with canvases on easels and an antique dresser that had been refashioned for storage, one of the drawers left half open, revealing cases of fine brushes. The top of the dresser was littered with tubes of paint and covered in wayward spots, looking a bit like a Jackson Pollock painting.

 

“Blimey,” Fancy called, from another room. “The kitchen is in a right state. Everything’s been just left out.”

 

Morse stood for a moment, considering the room. Perez-Lopez was a painter.

What would a serial killer and an art thief want with an artist?

 

“He was a painter,” Morse called.

 

Just then, Morse heard heavy footsteps, and Thursday came to stand alongside of him, looking into the room.  

“A painter?” Thursday queried. “What? Did the killer want him to paint something for him? If so, why did he kill him?”

Morse shrugged. “Perhaps he didn’t like it. Perhaps it wasn’t what he wanted.”

 

And then, Jakes, too, came to stand in the doorway of the room.

 “Sir,” Jakes said. “You had better come and look at this.”

Thursday turned to follow his sergeant at once, but Morse remained where he was.

If it was another corpse that Jakes had found, Morse had no wish to see it. Two in a week had been quite enough for him.

 

But Jakes paused and turned around, calling back to him. “You too, Morse.”

 

Reluctantly, Morse followed.

 

Jakes led them to a perfectly ordinary looking bedroom. White walls, a green quilt on the bed and matching green curtains at the single window, and an art deco dresser topped with a round mirror.

But as Morse caught sight of his reflection in the mirror, his breath caught sharp and high in his throat: there were two of him there.

 

In the fastenings of the mirror, the morning’s newspaper was carefully and lovingly folded and tucked, opened to display his own photograph back to him. 

The sight made Morse’s stomach clench, the acid rise to the back of his throat.

 

Frederico Perez-Lopez had been dead two days. It could not have been he who had left that morning’s paper thus. It must have been his murderer, returned to leave this little calling card.

 The killer must have been here, right here, this very morning, for him to have had that paper. Perhaps he had even stood where Morse stood now, not a half an hour ago.

 

Why would the killer risk returning to a place where he was sure the police would soon come searching? And even more troubling . . .

 

“Why would he have my photograph?” Morse asked, in a voice that sounded slightly higher and airier in his ears than the tone in which he typically spoke.

“It’s today’s paper. The bastard’s been here, right this morning,” Thursday said. “He’s taunting us. Call forensics. I want this whole place dusted for prints.”

 

“But why does he have my photograph?” Morse asked again.

 

Jakes shrugged. “Looks like you’ve got an admirer.”

Thursday cast Jakes a dark look, before turning to him.  “Most likely, he’s heard you are on the case. Just wants to rattle you.”

“Well,” Morse said. “It’s working.”

“Well don’t let it,” Thursday snarled. “I need you thinking clear.”

Thursday stood for a moment, considering him, his face once again inscrutable.

“I think that will be all for now. About your business, Constables. I’ll let you know if there’s anything else that’s pertinent when we meet back at the station. Two o’clock. All right? Mind how you go.”

 

 ********

Morse didn’t want to talk about it, but Fancy didn’t seem to want to talk about anything _but_.

“That’s really strange that he would have your picture. How would he know you were on the case? We’re only PCs. It’s certainly enough to give you a good shiver, isn’t it?” he said.

“It certainly is,” Morse said tartly, hoping Fancy would cotton on and get the point.

 

But it was no use.

 

“If that madman had _my_ photo on the wall, I don’t know what the hell I’d think. Takes some nerve, doesn’t it? Going right into the place, when he must have known we would be there once we had identified the corpse in the park?”

“Hmmmmm.” Morse said.

“Hey, why are we stopping?” Fancy asked.

Because Morse had stopped walking once they had reached the corner, stopped abruptly once they had reached the bus stop.

“We have an inquiry to make,” Morse said. “In Wantage.”

“ _Wantage_? That’s far outside our beat, isn’t it? And besides, I haven’t any money with which to pay the fare,” Fancy said.

“I’ll cover it for you,” Morse said.

“That sounds fair enough,” Fancy replied, brushing his dark fringe from his eyes and smiling. “You only owe me for five or six pints at least.

“Mmmmm,” Morse said.

But he felt a twinge of conscience. He had thought it might be difficult to convince Fancy as to the rightness of their travelling outside their jurisdiction as PCs on foot patrol, but it was easy.

Too easy.

Morse was left with the impression that Fancy might very well follow him right over the edge of a building.

But it was all right. Fancy wouldn’t get into any trouble. Morse had been given his orders, after all.

From Sergeant Jakes.

********

“Mr. Yelland?” Morse called.

The old man was standing out in his garden, bareheaded and in his shirt sleeves, pruning a line of runner beans.

The man was careworn, the skin of his sharp cheeks so thin as to be translucent, but, as he looked up, a light of hope illuminated his face.

“PC Morse,” Morse said. “Oxford City Police. I’m here to inquire about your daughter. Frida, is it?”

“Yes, yes, that’s it,” said the old man. “Is there any word? I’ve been from station to station. No one has seemed interested much.”

“I’m afraid not,” Morse said, and the man’s expression began to crumple.

“But I was hoping to ask, what happened, if you had a photograph. I’d like to help,” Morse amended, and the light in Mr. Yelland’s face flooded back.

 

Morse stood quietly, considering him.

 

From the tenderness with which he had held the vine as he trimmed the beans, to the manner in which he so obviously wore his heart on his sleeve, Mr. Yelland, Morse was convinced, was a kind father.

Jakes was wrong, all wrong: he was not the sort to prompt a girl to run away without a single word.

 

“It was just over a week ago that she disappeared. Wednesday last. She didn’t come home from work,” Mr. Yelland said.

“And where does she work?” Morse asked.

“Aerated Bread Company. I went down there and asked about, but no one seemed to remember her saying anything out of the ordinary, no one recalled her saying she was planning to go anywhere that evening.”

“Did her manager say if she gave notice?”

“No,” Mr. Yelland said. “She didn’t. That’s what’s all the more odd. She liked the place well enough. She wouldn’t up and quit without letting them know. Nor more than she would just leave home, without telling me. She’s all I have now, since my Elsbeth has passed on.”

“Her mother,” the old man said, in response to the questioning look on Morse’s face. “I met her, right when I came back from the war. She was a widow, Elsbeth, and Frida was just a little slip of a thing. But she took to me right away, my Frida did.”

 

Morse swallowed. So. He was only Frida’s stepfather, then.

And still, he was looking for her.

 

He had never expected Gwen to concern herself much, that he was gone. But Morse had never really given up hope on his father.

He would have thought that his own _father_ might have noticed he hadn’t heard from him in five years.

 

Thankfully, Mr. Yelland ushered them into the house, then, sparing Morse from having to hide the expression that must be on his face, sparing him from thinking on the parallels between the two of them —he and Frida—further.

 

The house was modest but tidy and cheerful and bright, and so unlike his own grim home, that he was further convinced of the rightness of his instincts. Why would the girl run away without a word, leaving this poor old man to worry?

Fancy, in the meanwhile, was uncharacteristically quiet. He was more silent, in fact, than Morse had ever known him to be, and it didn’t escape his notice, either, that he had failed to introduce himself. He knew they were stretching it.

 

Mr. Yelland led them into a yellow bedroom, with white curtains decorated with yellow roses and an old four-poster bed, covered in a white chenille bedspread, one hemmed in little white pompoms.

From a drawer of a maple dresser, the old man produced a heart-shaped box. He popped it open with a snap, to reveal a small pile of black-and-white snapshots, all of a smiling, dark-haired girl with a white bow in her hair.

“She had a bunch of these taken, just a few months ago. Keen on beauty pageants, she was. She’s always flitting about at Chipperfield Studios. Second runner up to be the new Pears Soap Girl, you know. She’s done a few car shows. Things like that. Latest thing was, she was going out for Miss Oxford. She was always practicing,” he said with a fond laugh. “Helped me to do the dishes while balancing a book on her head.”

“May I have one of these?” Morse said, nodding toward the box of photos.

“Of course,” Mr. Yelland said.

Morse took one off of the top and looked at it thoughtfully.

 

She looked so happy, almost radiant, smiling in the photograph. Morse couldn’t help but wonder, if—wherever she was—she was still as happy now. Or if she was off in some small room somewhere, waiting for someone to notice that she had disappeared, right off of a stretch of sidewalk, on her way from the bus stop.

 

 *********

Walking into Chipperdale Studios was a bit like walking into a wedding cake: tiers of flowerboxes the color of fondant and overflowing with white and purple petunias towered around a pastel blue swimming pool, and chairs of seafoam green stood stacked on steps, amidst speakers festooned with carnation ribbons.

Women in pink and green and blue dresses, heavy with corsages, chatted with men in dapper gray suits, sipping brightly colored drinks, off to one corner.

At Morse and Fancy’s approach, one of the men, a heavy-set man with a fantastic white mustache, excused himself to come and talk to them.

 

“Ah,” he said, coming to a stop before them, “Val Todd. You’re the ones they sent over, is that right?”

“Sent over?” Morse asked, uncertainly.

“For security,” the man said.

“ _Security_?” Fancy asked in wonderment. Everything about the place spoke of an almost studied frivolity; it seemed hardly the place where danger might be lurking around every corner.

“Yes,” Mr. Todd explained. “It will be quite the to-do. We are expecting quite a crowd. It’s not all just a beauty pageant, you know.”

“Isn’t it?” Morse asked.

“Course not. These girls are judged on personality as much as anything else. The girl who is chosen will be representing Oxford for all of the year.”

“ _Personality_?” Morse asked. “How can you presume to judge someone on their personality? Doesn’t everyone have one of those?”

Fancy snorted, “Some’re more easier to get on with than others.”

 

Morse threw him a sharp look, suspecting Fancy's comment had been aimed at he himself.

 

But Val Todd smiled indulgently. It seemed as if Fancy’s inane little joke had broken the ice.  

“Do you get many applicants?” Fancy asked.  

“Are you kidding me? For the right girl, this competition is the chance at fame and fortune. Personal appearances, endorsements. All of which we take care of.”

“For a percentage, presumably,” Morse amended.

Val Todd laughed. “As they say, it showbusiness, not show friendship.”

 

A middle-aged woman in a pink plaid dress, her mouth pursed into a tight line of bright red lipstick, strode over to them, then, carrying a clipboard.

“Oh. Are they the ones who will be providing security at the competition? Can we find them some evening suits?” she asked.

“He has an evening suit,” Morse replied, pointedly.

“This is Muriel. My good lady wife. Partner of my labours,” Mr. Todd said, looping an arm around her shoulder.

“Mrs. Todd,” Morse said with a nod.

She remained where she was long enough to nod in reply, and then she bustled off again, flipping through her sets of papers.

 

“She’s like a cat on a hot tin roof before a competition,” Mr. Todd said, with an air of apology. “So. Can I get you officers a drink?”

“No,” Morse said. “I won’t. I’m here to ask about a girl.  Frida Yelland.”

“Frida who?” Mr. Todd asked.

“Yelland,” Morse said, pulling the photograph from his jacket. “She’s scheduled to be in the pageant.”

“Oh, yes,” Todd said, looking at the photograph. “I know her.”

“When was the last time you saw her?” Morse asked.

“I’m afraid I can’t quite remember. Hard to keep them straight sometimes. One pretty girl is very much like another.” He laughed then, as if he had said something terribly witty.

 

Morse supposed, to a man like Todd, that was true. And one police officer was just the same as another. And one store clerk was just the same as another.

He was a horrible man, really.  

 

Just then, two men, carrying melon green drinks in their hands, wandered over to them.

“Is anything the matter officers?” one of them asked, sharply.

 

“Captain Batten,” Mr. Todd said, nodding to one, by way of introduction. “And ACC Deare,” he added, nodding to the other, the one who had just spoken.

 

Morse raised his eyebrows in surprise.

 

What was the Assitant Chief Constable doing here of all places?

 

“Judges,” Mr. Todd explained. “We have a panel of eight. We try to get people who are prominent in the community. Adds to the general interest.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen you before. PC . . . ?” ACC Deare asked.

“Morse,” Morse supplied.

“Where are you stationed, then?”

“Cowely,” Morse said.

 “ _Cowley?_ Well you’ve wandered quite a bit outside of your beat, haven’t you?” Deare said.

“We’re pursuing inquiries. About this missing girl,” Morse said. "Frida Yelland."

“ _Pursing_ _inquiries_?” Deare asked, incredulously.

 

Did the man need to repeat everything Morse had said?

 

Deare’s ice-blue eyes narrowed. “I didn’t realize that was a PC’s job. You had best get about your business, Constables.”  

 

Morse couldn’t help but snort a bit in contempt; perhaps the _Assistant_ _Chief_ _Constable_ ought to be getting about _his_ business too, rather than strolling about poolside with a ludicrous candy-colored cocktail.

“Yes, sir,” Morse said. “I’ll let you get back to your drink.”

“Do I detect a note of rebuke?” ACC Deare snapped.

“Now, Clive,” Captain Batten said. “I’m sure he’s just doing his job.”

“No. He’s not. He’s doing somebody else’s job,” Deare said. He lifted his sharp chin, so that he was looking down on him. “I’ll be having a word about you, Constable Morse.”

“Sir,” Morse nodded.

And then Morse turned and walked away, Fancy, looking mystified as to what had just happened, rolling along in his wake.

 

*********

Sergeant Higgins told him as soon as they came back into the station.

“They want to see you, Morse. Upstairs,” he said, grimly.

Morse sighed and turned to go. He would just have to explain, that was all.

“You too, Fancy,” Higgins said.

And Morse felt a twinge of conscience.

Still, Thursday, he was sure, would see reason.

 *******

Morse and Fancy took the stairs up to the second floor, paced down the hall and over to the heavy, scarred wooden door of the CID. Morse looked through the door's thick glass window, scanning the room, before turning the brass knob.

Inside the wood panel and forest green-painted room, were a bay of desks, a board filled with photographs and papers, and Inspector Thursday, his hat still on, standing by Jakes' desk, his arms folded. Jakes himself was sitting at his ease, drawing on a cigarette, with the air of someone preparing to enjoy a show.

 

Behind him, Morse heard Fancy swallow.

 

Morse took a deep breath, opened the door, and went over the threshold.

 

“We heard all about your little jaunt,” Sergeant Jakes called, as he and Fancy made their way into the CID.

Thursday, turned on the spot, his arms still folded, his expression unreadable.

“I was under orders,” Morse said.

“Whose orders?” Jakes scoffed.  

“Yours,” Morse said.

 

Jakes sat up sharply. “How do you figure that?” he asked.

 

“You told me this morning. You told me, ‘Then you bloody well find her.’”

 

Jakes let out a cry of protest, and Thursday glowered.

 

“Morse. That’s playing it fast and loose with the sergeant’s words and you know it,” Thursday said. “ACC Deare has made his complaint to Mr. Bright. It’s one thing if you are going to get yourself into trouble, but do you have to drag Fancy along in it with you?”

 

A faint line formed between Fancy’s brows. “I wasn’t _drug_ _along_. I know we. . . . veered off of our beat, but . . . . How could anyone object to a few simple questions about a missing girl? Shouldn’t we be keeping an eye out, at the very least?”

 

But Thursday ignored him, his focus remaining on Morse.

 

“I spoke to Mr. Bright about you. " _Specialist_ _knowledge_ ," I told him. Convinced him to allow you to help on these murder cases. And the first chance you get, you’re off, taking up whatever other case strikes your fancy?”

 

Morse frowned for a moment, looked down, and scrubbed up the hair at the back of his nape, saying nothing. 

Then he straightened out of his typical slouch.

 

“How do we know they aren’t connected?,” he asked, at last. “The murders of Alice Heverstone and Frederico Perez-Lopez and the disappearance of Frida Yelland?”

 

“How’s that?” Jakes said.

 

“I said,” Morse repeated, “how do we know they aren’t connected?”

 

“No painting has been stolen, has it?” Jakes shot back. “Doesn’t fit the pattern.”

“How do we know that?” Morse replied. “There could be a painting that has been in storage that’s been taken, and the museum curators haven’t yet noticed. Or one from a private collection, that hasn’t been reported.  It could even be a strip of wallpaper, taken from a historic house.”

 

“ _Wallpaper_?” Jakes cried.

 

“William Morris. He was a prominent figure among the Pre-Raphaelites. Well-known for his ornate wallpaper designs. Frida Yelland was the frequent contestant of several beauty pageants. Perhaps she was wearing a floral dress that reminded the killer of one of Morris’ patterns. How are we to know that that alone didn’t capture the killer’s attention?”

 

“ _Wallpaper?_ Are you listening to this?” Jakes asked, outraged.

 

“It seems as if the killer held Frederico Perez-Lopez for some time, before his death. How do we know he doesn’t have Frida Yelland now? I don’t know the killer’s motivation, do you? I don’t know what game he’s playing. But it certainly is a game," Morse said.  

 

Jakes and Thursday exchanged glances, and Morse could tell that they were coming round, that they were at least willing to consider the supposition.

 

"And until we’ve figured it out, I don’t think we can afford to rule out fifty percent of the possibilities," Morse added. “Do you?”


	5. Chapter 5

"Well, hello, there,” WPC Trewlove said, as she walked past Morse and Fancy's desks. “If it isn’t Cowley Station’s own rebels without a cause.”

 

Fancy looked up from the report he was typing with a jolt. 

 

Trewlove stopped before them, then, her heart-shaped face utterly unreadable. What was more, she had said the words so impassively, it was impossible to tell if there was a hint of admiration in her voice or of admonishment.

 

Fancy, it was clear, didn’t know, either. Morse decided it would be the kinder course to step in.

 

“We  _did_  have cause,” Morse said. “We were following a lead. On a missing girl from Wantage. Frida Yelland.”

Trewlove seemed to still at that.

“Missing girl?” she asked. “You mean the girl whose father has been leaving those messages on the radio?”

“That’s right,” Morse said. “We stopped by to see him. He’s desperate for news. It just seemed as if someone ought to do something to help him. That’s all.”

“And that took you all the way to Chipperdale Studios?” she asked. “I heard you two got caught out by ACC Deare, having drinks there by the pool.”

 

Fancy let out a sharp cry of protest. 

“That’s not true!” he cried, “It was  _ACC_   _Deare_  who was hanging about and having a drink. With some bloke who’s running a beauty pageant that Frida's going out for. What a complete bastard. Pretended he hardly even knew her, even though she must have been there often enough.

“‘ _One_   _pretty_   _girl_   _is_   _much_   _the_   _same_   _as_   _another_ ,’” Fancy parroted, in a voice filled with contempt. “Maybe the girls think one old creep is much the same as another. Don’t suppose he ever thought of that, now, did he?”

 

Trewlove raised her eyebrows. It was most likely the first time she had heard Fancy say so many words at once, and so earnestly; the first time she had heard him speak without the filter of that daffy smile—meant to be suave—that he assumed whenever she came within a hundred feet of him.

 

But there was something troubling in what Fancy had said.

 

“He  _was_  a horrible man,” Morse conceded.  “Todd. But you don’t think he has anything to do with Frida’s disappearance, do you?”

Fancy snorted. “I certainly do. He knows more than what he’s saying.”

“But . . . these killings. Alice Heverstone. Frederico Perez-Lopez. Certainly, her case is connected to those.”

“Like Sergeant Jakes said, isn’t it? No painting was stolen,” Fancy said.

 

Morse frowned.

 

Fancy sat up then, looking at him and furrowing his brow. “You didn’t actually believe that rubbish you said about  _wallpaper_ , did you? I thought you only said that to get us off the hook.”

“Of course, I meant it. Why would I have said it if I hadn’t meant it?” Morse asked.

“I dunno,” Fancy said. “Seems a bit far-fetched, is all. A bit overthought. I mean—look at them, down there, schmoozing around. What was Deare doing down there in the middle of the day?”  

“He’s a judge, Todd said. He’s a judge in the contest,” Morse replied.  

“Well, was the pageant going on right at the moment? Were they even having rehearsals? I didn’t see any of the contestants down there, did you?” Fancy asked.

 

Morse paused. It was true enough. But as unappealing a man as Todd was, he didn’t strike Morse at all as the man he was looking for.

 

“No,” Morse said. “It has to be . . . it has to be this art thief, doesn’t it? Perez-Lopez hadn’t been at his house for weeks. He had disappeared in just the same way as Frida has. The only difference was,” and here, Morse felt his throat tighten  . . . 

“The only difference was . . . no one had noticed.”

 

They both turned away, then, considering what the other had said.

 

In the meanwhile, Trewlove was watching the both of them, thoughtfully.

 “So. It really was about this missing girl, then? That’s why you were over there?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Fancy and Morse chorused, vehemently; they might disagree on everything else, but on this they were in full accord.

“Hmmmm,” Trewlove hummed, noncommittally. And her face again closed like a flower, and without further comment, she walked off into the depths of the office.

 

After she was out of earshot, Fancy groaned.

“What is it?” Morse asked, at once.

Fancy chanced a glance in the direction in which she had left.

“That was not smooth at all. I really blew it.”

Morse glanced, too, in the direction in which Trewlove had departed.

Morse had thought just the opposite; he had had the impression that perhaps she had been reassessing her opinion of him for the better. That she might finally be taking him seriously—as a colleague rather than as a mere annoyance.

 

Well. It all just went to show.

 

Fancy didn’t know what he was on about. As usual.

 

Of course, Frida Yelland’s disappearance was connected to the other murders.

That went without saying.

The only thing to do was to try to find her, before it was too late.

 

******

 

“It won’t do, Thursday. It simply won’t do,” Mr. Bright said, tossing a file down onto his desk. 

Thursday leaned forward in the chair opposite. “I understand, sir,” he said.

“Traipsing about, off his beat. This nonsense about William Morris and wallpaper. Considering Morse’s past, it’s obvious why he might be upset by a case like this ... of a young person gone missing, but ..... to head off, on his own devices? .... Are we quite sure that he’s  _stable?”_

“Passed every test,” Thursday said, tersely. 

“He’s clever. I’ll grant you that. But I’ve been speaking with a few experts who will be addressing the CID later this morning and ...” Mr. Bright began.

”Sir?” Thursday prompted, sensing more in the offing.

“And I took the liberty of showing one of them Morse’s file. His  _real_  file.”

 

Thursday paused at that, contemplating the blue curl of smoke from Mr. Bright’s cigarette as it twisted in the dim light of the room.

Thursday had hoped to keep that file as private as possible.

 

“The man I consulted with, Dr. Cronyn, is of the opinion that someone as clever as Morse might be able to fudge the test, to give the examiners the answers he knows they want to hear.”

“That may be. But Morse is honest, first to last. I just don’t see it, sir.”

 

Thursday thought of the conversation he had had with Morse two nights earlier—Morse didn’t try to deny, or to make any excuse for what had transpired in Anthony Donn’s jetliner of a car. When pressed, he honestly didn’t even seem to be able in good conscience to swear that it wouldn’t happen again.

The lad was incapable of offering a little white lie even for the sake of smoothing things over. He wouldn’t have bilked the psychological assessment. If the examiner said he was fine, then he was fine.

 

Morse was fighting a losing battle as it was.

How would he ever be allowed a fresh start if those around him wouldn’t let him forget his past? If they wouldn’t let it fade away into the rearview mirror?

 

****************

 

“They want you and Fancy. Upstairs,” Sergeant Higgins said.

Morse and Fancy looked up, startled.

 

What had they done now? They had spent the morning catching up on paperwork—stolen car near Magdalene College that had turned out to be a student prank, gas meter thefts in Jericho.

 

“Chief Superintendent Bright has some experts in. To give their insights on these murders. He wants you two to hear what they’ve got to say,” Higgins explained.

 

Morse nodded, and he and Fancy slid back their wooden chairs and went upstairs together to the offices of the CID. 

 

 

As soon as he pushed open the glass-paneled door, Morse saw that Thursday was there, and Mr. Bright, and Jakes, and all of the detectives from the CID, gathered in the main office, standing in corners and sitting on the edges of desks.

At the front of the room—where photographs and note cards and scraps of paper were taped to the glass inner-office windows—two men stood, waiting to address those assembled.

One was a middle-aged man with somber dark eyes and receding auburn hair. 

And the other was . . . Joss Bixby.

 

Morse’s eyes widened in surprise as he caught sight of the familiar figure, and—for the barest fraction of an instant—a frown of rebuke crossed Bixby’s face.

Morse could read the meaning of the expression loud and clear.

 

Why look so surprised? Are you  _trying_  to give me away?

 

Mr. Bright nodded to Morse and to Fancy as they came into the room, as if satisfied that all were present and accounted for. Then he pulled himself up to his full height and addressed the group.

“As you are well aware, we have a killer on the loose,” he said in his reedy voice. “He’s struck twice, and to be certain he doesn’t have a third chance, Division has brought in some specialists to give us their expert opinion.”

 

He gestured, then, to the man with the auburn hair. He wore the uniform of the academic: black turtleneck shirt, tweed jacket.

Who was he? Not a don, surely?

 

“This is Dr. Daniel Cronyn. A psychiatrist in private practice,” Mr. Bright said. “He’s made a particular study of these kind of deranged individuals, such as the one we are seeking.”

“And this,” he added, nodding to Bixby, “Is Mr. Joss Bixby, a consultant with The National Gallery of Art in Washington—the museum into whose care the second stolen painting, ‘Ariel Luring Ferdinand,’ had been entrusted—and an authority on Pre-Raphaelite art.”

 

 _An_   _authority_   _on_   _Pre_ - _Raphaelite_   _art_? 

 

Morse couldn’t help himself; a small, disparaging laugh seemed to burble out of him, much like air leaking from a balloon.

Bixby was a secret agent, a grandson of a wealthy businessman, the illustrious host of extravagant parties, a hydroplane racer ..... and now an art historian, too? He hardly seemed the type.

 

Bixby’s dark eyes flashed at him for a moment, and Morse cut the sound off, as he realized that every single man in the room had turned to stare at him in wonderment.

Morse tugged on his ear and looked down at a tile on the floor, both to hide his bemusement and to avoid their gaze.

 

Mr. Bright cleared his throat, pointedly.

“Yes. Well. Dr. Cronyn,” he announced, inviting the first man introduced to proceed.

 

Dr. Cronyn stepped forward so that the long fingers of sunlight that reached through the slats of the Venetian blinds fell upon him, casting an odd sort of haze of shadow and luminance across his face.

He regarded them for a moment, quietly, as if he had dark and unimaginable secrets to share.

And then, he stated the obvious.

 

“The perpetrator of these crimes clearly exhibits a profoundly disturbed psyche,” he announced.

 

“Indeed,” Morse noted, with a snort.

 

Morse didn’t understand it, but, for some reason, every man in the office turned again and looked at him, Thursday even going so far as to glower a bit.

But why? Clearly, they didn’t need a so-called expert to tell them that?

 

Cronyn laughed, uncomfortably.

 

As well he should. He was obviously a greater fraud even than Bixby.

 

“I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t know,” Dr. Cronyn conceded. “What may be less obvious to you, perhaps, is that he will also be highly functioning. Which, I regret to say, will make him very difficult to apprehend.”

 

“What’s he after?” Thursday asked.

“Impossible to say,” Cronyn replied.

 

The psychiatrist turned then, so that he was musing over the bits of evidence taped to the window.

“Other than he confirms to the triad personality of Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy, I’d expect him to be highly intelligent,” he said. “Although this might not necessarily be reflected in academic achievements.”

“How old?” Thursday asked.

“Mid-twenties to mid-thirties. Forty, at a push.”

“There’s no possibility this could be the end of it?” Mr. Bright asked.

 

Dr. Cronyn turned back to them, so that the splintered sunbeams fell upon him again, like a truncated spotlight.

 

“Gentlemen,” he said, “you’re confronting a mind unconstrained by notions of guilt . . . regret . . . right and wrong . . . . good and evil. So far as he’s concerned, we’re just prey.”

 “ _Prey_?” Morse asked, incredulously.

“Kine reared for slaughter,” Cronyn replied.

“We’ll stop him,” Morse said.

“How?” Dr. Cronyn asked. “You think you’re going to appeal to his nobler instincts? His better angels? He doesn’t have any. The only thing I can tell you with absolute certainty is he will kill again.”

 

They all stood there, then, in dour silence.

It was difficult to see how the man had been of any help, really. Morse found him rather off-putting; he seemed to be a little too mesmerized by the picture he had painted, one of the formidableness of their opponent. 

 

“Mr. Bixby,” Mr. Bright asked, briskly, as if trying to steer them through the gloom to some safer harbor, “Your thoughts?”  

 

Bixby, then stepped forward, standing alongside the evidence board.

“There have been two paintings stolen, thus far, one preceding each of the murders. ‘The Blessed Damozel’ by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and ‘Ariel Luring Ferdinand’ by John Everett Millais. Both Pre-Raphaelite artists. I thought it might be useful to consider what the paintings had in common. What are some of the qualities, after all, of Pre-Raphaelite art?”

 

“A preternatural realism, a scientific fidelity to nature, to color and light," Morse replied. "An obsessive attention to detail."

“Yes,” Bixby prompted. “And?”

“And at the same time, often obsessed with the supernatural,” Morse said. “Both of the paintings stolen, for example, have some sort of magical, otherworldly quality about them. The Blessed Damozel is in heaven, looking down on her lover. And in ‘Ferdinand Luring Ariel,’ there are three grotesque magical beings, painted in shades of green so as to blend into the landscape, as if to be invisible.”

"There are two," Bixby corrected. 

"There are three," Morse countered. 

"I own the damn painting, Morse. It was on my wall before I gave it on loan to the National Gallery. There are two. Ugly little bat-like things. It's why I gave the thing away." 

"I’m counting Ariel among them," Morse said. 

 

“Oh,” Bixby conceded. “All right. Three. The point is, both paintings have a hint of the supernatural, about them, as you said, yes?"

"Yes," Morse granted.

 

"And it’s my understanding” Bixby said, “that a copy of a novel—one dating to the same era as the paintings—has been sent to the station. Is that right?”

“That’s right,” Mr. Bright said.

 

 _“The Picture of Dorian Gray_. By Oscar Wilde,” Morse said. “With a passage underlined: ‘ _Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not the sitter.’”_

 

“A portrait of the artist,” Bixby mused.

 

Then he added, “As Dr. Cronyn said, the man, like most killers, is a Narcissist. So. What’s he telling us?”

 

It didn’t escape Morse’s notice that Bixby was largely asking questions, rather than giving them anything new—the oldest trick in the book for imposters everywhere.

 

“What  _is_  he telling us?” Fancy asked.

“Ultimately, it's all about him. Ultimately, he's the artist. These crimes are not about the victims, but about he himself,” Morse said.

“So. What does that mean? He sees murder as some sort of art form?” Jakes asked. “He wants to express something about himself? That’s what I had thought, when I first saw the book.”

 

Bixby nodded, as if conceding the possibility.

Then he took a few steps forward into the room, closing the space between he and his audience. “What is it Narcissists want?” he asked.

“Fame? To be known?” Fancy asked.

“They feel as if whole world centers around themselves, their personality,” Morse said. “That the universe was not complete until their own little collection of misconnected neurons happened upon the scene.”

“And it won’t be able to go on without it,” Bixby prompted.  

“He wants to go on forever. He wants to be immortal,” Morse said. “So, he wants to . . . what, exactly? Put his soul into a painting? As Basil Hallward seems to do with Dorian Gray’s in the novel’?”

 

Morse frowned, scrubbing up the curls at the back of his nape.

 

 “Alice Heverstone and Frederico Perez-Lopez had been manipulated to look like the paintings,” he said. “Miss Heverstone had stars in her hair. And Mr. Perez-Lopez was dressed like Ferdinand in the painting, in Shakespearean costume.”  

 

 “So, you think they were experiments then?” Jakes asked. “He killed them trying to... what? Capture their souls? To see if he could invest their souls into the paintings?”

 

“Perez-Lopez was a painter, though, as well,” Thursday said.  

 

“Perhaps he had him try it,” Morse said. “Perhaps the killer had him paint his portrait. A painting already in existence, of course, wouldn't be good enough for him. He wants his own.”

“Custom made,” Jakes snorted.

“My God. The man had Perez-Lopez paint his own future killer’s portrait,” Morse said. “One exceptional enough that it might capture his twisted soul. And he couldn't do it.”

 

“Well, of course, he couldn't do it,” Jakes said.

 

“Maybe, as Perez-Lopez couldn’t get him what he wanted, he simply made the man into another trial?” Thursday ventured.

 

“So,” Morse said. “That’s it, then. That’s what he’s after. He wants a painting of himself. One that will contain his very soul. But he isn’t quite sure how to go about it. . . .”

“And the same Narcissism that drives him to his goal, means also that he doesn’t give much of a damn about anyone else so . . . ,” Bixby began.

“So, he doesn’t care how many experiments he has to run . . . how many souls he has to claim... how many people he has to kill . . .” Morse continued.

“Until he gets it right,” Bixby said.  

 

“But it’s mad! It’s mad! He’ll never get it right,” Morse said.

“And so, he’ll never stop,” Thursday said. “Until he’s nicked.”

 

For a moment, a hush fell upon the room, so that the only sound was the wretched creaking of a battered electric fan on a desk in the corner. They all stood, looking at one another, standing rooted to the spot.

But it felt as if they had travelled miles.

 

Just then, Sergeant Higgins came stridently into the room.

“Sir,” he said, addressing Inspector Thursday. “A body has been found. In Trill Mill Stream. In the canal that runs underneath Beaufort College.”

 

*********

As soon as Morse saw her—as soon as he saw how still she lay, her pale oval face drifting just above the surface of the dark water, he knew.

“She’s Ophelia,” he breathed, in a voice barely above a whisper. “She’s Ophelia.”

 

Fancy stole a glance at him and frowned. “ _Ophelia_? But it’s her. From the photograph Mr. Yellend gave us. It’s Frida Yelland, isn’t it?”

 

Morse shook his head, lost in thought.

 

Because it was Frida Yelland. And she was someone just like him. Town, really, not gown.  All she wanted was a little romance in a humdrum world.  

As she wrapped loaf after loaf of bread, down at the factory, day in and day out, did she hum to herself a bit, imagining herself gliding onto a stage in a tiara? Just as he had once stolen off to his room in the grim house in Lincolnshire, hiding away from his father and Gwen so that he could listen to his records, so that he could close his eyes and pretend he was somewhere else for a while?

 

“What’s this?” Thursday asked.

 

“It's her," Morse managed. "Frida Yelland. But she’s Ophelia. She’s posed just like Ophelia. In a painting by John Everett Millais.”

“Like, what? Hamlet’s Ophelia? From Shakespeare?” Mr. Bright asked.

 

All she wanted was to be the Pears Soap Girl. It was pathetic, almost, the modesty of her dreams. And to Morse’s horror, he tasted salt.

Angrily, he turned his face away and wiped it on his sleeve.

 

He had thought, in becoming a police officer, he would become Inspector Thursday.

He had never considered that he would see himself in victim after victim, instead.

 

“Morse?”

 

But Morse couldn't answer. He couldn't look away from her. Already Dr. DeBryn was making his way along the gray and dismal canal over to her white form. She would be carted off to the mortuary. She would not become Miss Oxford or a police officer or a wife or a mother or anything.

For Frida, there would be no rearview mirror.

 

“But she has flowers, doesn’t she, armloads of bright flowers? In the painting?” Bixby asked. “Weren’t the other bodies . . . manipulated in some way? Lilies? Barrettes? Clothing? Wouldn’t the killer have given her flowers?” 

“They washed away,” Morse said. “They all washed away.”

“But there’s very little current here, Morse,” Thursday said.

“They all washed away,” Morse said.  

“The subject is female, early to mid-twenties,” Dr. DeBryn intoned. “Dead between two to four hours.”

 

Morse’s heart gave a lurch. She must have been held somewhere. They had missed the killer by only a few hours.

 

“She’s posed just like the girl in the painting. By Millais,” Morse said. “Her face just above the surface of the water. It’s him. It's the killer. It's the same man.”

“We can’t say that, Morse,” Thursday said, “Just because she’s been left in the water. Was Ophelia in the painting in an underground stream like this?”

“It’s him,” Morse repeated.

Out of the corner of his eye, Morse saw Bixby look at him uncertainly. “No,” he said, answering Thursday's question. “She’s in a bucolic woodland. Surrounded by drifting wildflowers.”

 

Bixby turned, then, to Morse, "You know, Morse. Not everything has to fit in with one theory.”

He gave him a pointed look and added, “My superiors sent me here today with one theory in mind, and I've discounted it. Simple as that." 

“They all washed away,” Morse said.

 

And then there was an arm on his shoulder; and it wasn’t Thursday’s, nor Bixby’s nor even Fancy’s, but that of the smooth-faced psychiatrist, Dr. Cronyn.

Morse jerked his arm away.

 

“Morse?” Thursday asked.

“Are you quite all right, Constable?” Dr. Cronyn said.

“I’m fine,” Morse snapped.

 

Morse turned away, but he could feel Dr. Cronyn’s eyes still trained on him, almost obliquely black in the half-light that wafted through the strange catacomb beneath the building’s foundations. 

"You’re really taking the case to heart, aren’t you?” Cronyn asked.

 

Morse looked up at him in disbelief. “Why shouldn’t I?” he asked. “A father’s lost his daughter. And there’s nothing I can do to put it right.”

 

He looked back to where Dr. DeBryn was watching over the dead girl. Someone would have to tell the old man, the old man waiting there among the runner beans.

And Morse knew there had been flowers. And they had all washed away.

 

******

“You’re quiet,” Joan said.

Morse didn’t know what to say; it still, after all this time, took him off-guard, when someone pointed that out. It made him self-conscious, and then, perversely, the words were even harder to find.

Sam laughed. “He usually is, isn’t he?”

Joan rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“A bit of a rough day at work,” Thursday said. ‘Pass the milk, will you, love?”

Mrs. Thursday passed the small white and blue pitcher across the table. “Well, I have a bit of cake from the other night, still. That and some tea and you’ll be as right as rain,” she said.

"Yes," Morse said, automatically. "Thank you, Mrs. Thursday.”

"Morse agrees with me that we're watching the match tonight, right Morse?" Sam asked.

"Yes," Morse said, "all right." 

 

Sam laughed then, but Joan was looking annoyed.

But why? 

 

It didn't make any sense. 

 

“He’s tricked you,” Joan said.

“What?” Morse asked. “Sorry?”

“He knows you’re wool-gathering. Sam. He’s tricked you into agreeing to watch football.”

“Oh,” Morse said. “I don’t mind what we watch. It’s nice just to sit together, I suppose.”

 

And Frida wouldn’t have another quiet and simple evening like this again, nor Frederico, nor Alice. It seemed unfair that he should get to sit here, in his own place in the cheerily-lit dining room, surrounded by the Thursdays, when they had nowhere.

 

“Here, here, then,” Mrs. Thursday said, raising her glass. “That’s right, Morse. Here’s to an end of bickering over the telly.” 

“But, Mum. Simon Dee has got The Wildwood on. It’s important for Morse’s pop culture education,” Joan said.

“Nice try,” Sam said. “Morse talks with coppers all day, doesn’t he? It would be much better for him to know who won the match than to know what Nick Wilding was wearing last night, believe me. Am I right, Morse?”

 “Hmmmmm?” Morse replied.

 

It didn’t make any sense.

 

Thursday had called, when they got back to the station, about Millais' painting of Ophelia, but the painting was safe, hanging in its proper place at the Tate Gallery in London.

But yet Frida had been posed just like the girl in the painting.

 

And why would the killer send the book at all? The Picture of Dorian Gray? Why give them a clue at all, as to what he was up to?

Unless it made his mad attempts more fulfilling to him, knowing that he had an audience to marvel at his deeds? 

 

And Bixby. What was Bixby up to? He had disappeared, right after they left Beaufort College, just as easily as he had faded into the crowd when Morse had caught a glimpse of him at the fair, last summer.

Bixby had said that his superiors had sent him to check on a theory and that he and discounted it.

What did he mean by that?

Did those for whom he worked—the CIA if Morse could believe it—believe that the art thefts had to do with any sort of espionage, then? And Bixby disagreed?

 

“Morse?”

 

That would mean that Bixby  _did_  agree with him, then. That all three murders were done by the same hand. 

 

“Morse?”

“Sir?”

“How do you know this Bixby character?” Thursday asked. 

“Sir?” Morse asked.

“You were batting it back and forth like old friends. He seemed to know you.”

“Oh. Did he?”

“Yes,” Thursday said, simply. "He knew your name, it seemed. Do you know him?"

Morse hesitated. He supposed it might be safe enough to say he had gone out to one of Bixby’s parties, but, in light of what had happened between he and Tony the other night, he didn’t especially want to remind Thursday of the conversation he had had with him the morning after that party last summer, when he had shown up in Bixby’s loaned car.

 

"Yes," Morse said. "No. I don't know. Maybe I do. From somewhere.”

Thursday snorted and stirred his tea.

 

***************

Morse lay back on his bed in the semi-darkness, letting his gaze drift amidst the vines painted on his walls, allowing his thoughts to fly with the spiraling flights of bright painted birds. 

It didn't make any sense. 

There ought to have been flowers. And shouldn’t they have checked further down the canal, to make sure there really weren’t any?

Could he convince Fancy to go with him to check in the morning?

And why was Bixby nosing around? And why would he be using his real name?

And why would the killer have left that photograph from the _Oxford Mail_ on Perez-Lopez’s mirror? 

 

“He’s tricked you,” Joan had said.

And the killer was, wasn’t he? Leading them by the nose? Leading them in a mad chase?

 

Just then, there was a quiet knock on the half-open bedroom door.

“Yes?” Morse called.

The door creaked open.

“Morse,” Thursday said. “We’re needed at the station.”

*********

Two calls had come in that evening. 

Two calls . . . . and a letter.

The first call came in from a private art collector, relaying that a painting had been stolen, another one by John Everett Millais; it was a picture painted towards the end of Millais' career, a portrait of his grandson, William Millbourne James.

 

And the second call came in from Mr. and Mrs. Mills, of Iffey, reporting that their child, six-year-old James Mills, was missing, snatched, evidently, right out of his bedroom, through an open window.

 

As for the enigmatic letter, it contained only four words:

_Frida is New Tides._

 

Here was proof positive that Frida’s death was linked to the others, then. Morse had known it, felt it, all along.

But what did the words mean? Was it a threat? An assurance that Frida’s death, the end of a trilogy of murders, was, in fact, just the beginning?

 

“So? What of this painting? The latest one stolen?” Thursday asked.  “Any leads there?”

“It’s a perfectly ordinary portrait,” Morse said. “It depicts a small boy, sitting on a gray tuffet, playing with a wooden bubble pipe. Originally, it was called 'A Child’s World.' But then, the painting was sold to an art collector, who later sold it to Thomas Baratt, who was, at the time, the managing director of A & F Pears.”

“You mean the people who make Pears Soap?” Fancy asked.

“Yes,” Morse said. “It was Baratt's idea to use the painting as an advertisement. Once the company bought the copyright, you see, they altered the painting, adding an oval bar of Pears soap to the image, to make it look as if the child had used the soap to make the bubbles. It was around that time that the painting came to be known simply as ‘Bubbles.’”

 

"Pears Soap," Morse murmured, then, meeting Fancy’s gaze.

"What's that, Constable?” Thursday asked. 

"Frida Yelland. One of the pageants she competed in was to be the Pears Soap Girl," Fancy explained. "Her father told us." 

 

"Right," Thursday said. "Factory's out on Drewery Street. Jakes and I are going out to have a look-see." 

“But, sir, I don’t think that’s it," Morse said. 

“ _What_?” Jakes asked. “You’re the one who has wanted us to admit to a connection between the cases. And now that we're conceded, and you've given us a whole spiel about a possible link, you backtrack?"  

“I . . . " Morse began. "Yes, but what of the letter?”

“ _New_   _tides_. That’s water, isn’t it? Soap and water, what could be more natural?” Jakes asked. 

 

But Morse shook his head. “There’s something wrong. The other paintings, The Blessed Damozel, Ferdinand, Ophelia. . .” 

 

“‘Ophelia’ hasn’t been stolen,” Thursday corrected, at once.

 

“…. They all depict mythical themes. This painting is just a portrait of a child, a simple portrait of an actual child.”

“Yeah,” Jakes said. “And now the madman's  _got_  an  _actual_  child, so . . ."

 

“Do you have any other ideas?” Thursday asked, cutting to the chase. 

“No,” Morse admitted. 

"Then we're going. Won't hurt to check it out. Call us if you come up with anything else. If the killer has the boy, then time is of the essence," Thursday said. 

 

And Morse understood what Inspector Thursday meant, because it was clear that it was a game the killer was playing.

 

Solve the puzzle, save the child.

 

But, still . . . . There was something wrong, something that didn’t quite fit... the painting was just so .... mundane compared to the others... Millais had even been decried to a certain extent when the painting was put to commercial uses.

 

"But, sir," Morse said. 

"Radio in when you've got something else, Constable. But we'll start with this," Thursday rumbled, sweeping his hat off the desk with one broad hand.

"Sergeant," he said, then, with a nod to Jakes to follow.

 

"But, sir," Morse protested again.

How to explain, when they weren’t giving him time?

 

"Get cracking, Constable. We'll take it one lead at a time," Jakes said. He stubbed his cigarette out in a glass ashtray and added, "Inspector Thursday must have the patience of a saint to put up with you around the clock.”

And then he swept off after Thursday, with his typical stork-like stride.

 

 

Morse sighed and slumped back down into a chair at a desk next to Fancy and stared down at the single leaf of writing paper.

_Frida is new tides._

He clicked his pen.

 

click-click-click

 

But then the clicks began to sound like the ticking of a clock, reminding him that minutes were passing, one by one, reminding him that he might not have much time.

Jakes was right. He would have to have the patience of a saint. He couldn't afford to let himself get rattled.

 

A saint.

 

"It’s an anagram," Morse said. 

"What?" Fancy asked. 

"It's an anagram.  _Frida_   _is_   _new_   _tides_. Saint Frideswide.”

”Who?” Fancy asked.

But Morse ignored him.

”There's a series of stained glass windows at Christ Church Cathedral,” he mused. “Of St. Frideswide. They were designed by Edward Burne-Jones, a Pre-Raphaelite artist." 

 

And that was right, that fit. That was it, then.  

 

"Let's go," Morse said. 

And he tossed the paper down and headed for the door of the CID, leaving Fancy little choice but to follow.

*******

Morse and Fancy ran up the steps and threw open the doors of the darkened church. Inside the sanctuary, a small casket stood, surrounded by lit candles.

For one brief moment, they exchanged startled glances, and then they took off running, down the central aisle tiled with ornate patterns of black diamonds against white, past lines of straight-backed polished wood pews, step matching step.

As soon as they reached the casket, they slid the lid open.

And then they collapsed in relief against the coffin’s wooden sides.

 

The boy was inside, unharmed, breathing deeply and evenly, as if asleep.

 

"My heart is fit to burst," Fancy said, struggling to catch his breath. He was lifting the child from the white satin lining, when footsteps sounded up in the gallery. Morse looked at Fancy, eyes wide.

The killer was still here, in the building. It was as if he had been waiting for them. 

 

"Take him," Morse said. "Take him out of here. And call for backup."

"But Morse!” Fancy protested. 

"Just get the child out of here," Morse said. And then he was thundering up a set of narrow steps. 

******  

Morse ran down a long hall lined with wooden chairs and hung with a collection of paintings, and then up two flights of stairs and into utter darkness.

 

There were no windows at the top of the landing; the world was black, as dark as it had been at night in the small room in which he had once lived. He could almost feel them, the threat of skeletal sevens, lurking in every corner.

 

Still, he walked forward until he came to another set of steps. He stopped and listened in the darkness, until he heard a faint rustle from above—and then he was running up and up, up a round of circular stairs, up into the spiraling darkness, as if he was within one of the towers. 

And so much the better if he was. Once he reached the top, the killer would have nowhere to go. He would be cornered. 

Morse flew around the final stair post, and there it was—a shadow in the dark.

Was it ... could it be the shadow of the man he’d been pursuing?

 

“Hello?” Morse called. “Is someone there?”

 

He stood for a long while in silence, listening for the sound of another man’s breathing, but hearing only his own. 

But then, suddenly, the shadow seemed to stand. Instead of retreating, however, it was looming larger, flying toward him out of the black; and then, he saw a flash of red. 

 

At first, Morse thought perhaps some forgotten candle burned behind a piece of stained glass the color of blood, but then he realized he had imagined it—the flash of red was not before him, but behind his eyelids, as he closed his eyes tight, steeling himself against the burning pain that seared suddenly though his side. 

And then the killer was running past him.

He was getting away.

Morse turned and ran down the stairs and along the dark corridor, his footfalls landing heavily as he went.

By the time he reached the next flights of stairs, he was feeling strangely light-headed, as if the only thing keeping him going was the sound of his footsteps falling one after the other: as long as he heard that sound, as long as he managed to replicate it despite his growing faintness, there was a chance that the culprit might not get away.  

Finally, Morse came into the church sanctuary, lit by colored glass and candles and light, and then he was flying out into the mist of the night, out onto the dark, wet sidewalk.

He spun in a circle, but the shadow had disappeared, just as easily as Bixby had disappeared after they had left Beaufort College, just as easily as he had when he disappeared last summer at the fair.

And then, there were other dark shadows thundering down the pavement, coming towards him.

 

Among them was Jakes.

"Where is he?" Morse shouted. "Where did he go?" 

"Who?" Jakes asked. 

"The suspect!" 

“Morse?” Jakes asked, sharply. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Morse said, “We have to . . . .”

“No,” Jakes said, gesturing to him with a nod. “Your shirt.”

Morse lifted his jacket and looked down to his side, where a patch of red, dull and dark in the streetlight, was billowing against the white of his shirt. He put his hand against it. It was hot and sticky under his touch. It was blood.

 

The next thing he knew, he was sprawled on the steps, the hard stone digging into his back, a searing pain in his side. 

“Man down! Call for an ambulance!” Jakes shouted.

And then, Jakes' face, pale and solemn, was hovering over his in the darkness. Morse didn't understand; there was a faint drizzle in the air, and yet Jakes was whipping off his jacket, pulling his arms out of the sleeves and balling it up. 

"Hold on, Morse," he said, and then, he was lurching toward him.

What was Jakes trying to do to him? Why wouldn’t he leave him alone, even now, when it was clear he was unable to fight? He put his hands up to fend him off, but Jakes pushed them aside.

“Damn it, Morse,” Jakes said. “I’m only trying to staunch the bleeding.”

He held the jacket up to the pain in his side and pushed against it. 

And then Morse heard someone yelling, deep, low cries that echoed down the forlorn, rain-slicked street; they were just like the screams he had heard in those first days after he had woken up in the white room. 

It was frightening, hearing such a terrible sound.

And then he realized, just like then, it was he who was making them. 


	6. Chapter 6

Thursday was striding along a row of arched doorways at the north side of the cathedral when he heard it, a low and strangled cry that echoed down the rain-slicked sidewalks and across the shadowed, rolling lawns.

 

It was definitely Morse.

 

He turned and ran in the direction of the sound, toward the front of the building, his heart beating with the pounding of his footfalls, his breath coming in bursts sharp in his chest.

 

What in hell had possessed the lad to go after the madman alone?

 

He flew around the corner and ground to a halt. And then, he inhaled a deep breath of the chilled night air, nearly sagging with relief.

They were all there, all assembled: Strange and Trewlove standing before the steps with Fancy, who was holding a sleeping boy in his arms, the child’s head lying heavily on his shoulder.  

And, on the stone steps, Sergeant Jakes was kneeling, dressed down to his shirtsleeves, pressing his bunched-up jacket against Morse’s side.

As Thursday came closer, he could see that Morse’s face was pale, his eyes glazed with pain, as he attempted to push Jakes away.

“Damn it, Morse,” Jakes said. “Hold steady. I’m only trying to apply some pressure to the wound.”

Jakes tightened his grip on the material in his hand and held it firmer still against Morse’s side.

“Don’t,” Morse gasped, trying his best to shift away from him.

 

As Morse moved, Jakes’ hold slackened, revealing a deep red stain billowing across Morse's torn shirt.

 

Thursday hissed in sympathy when he saw the wound. He knelt, at once, down beside Jakes.

 

“Steady, lad. Keep still now. You’ll make it worse, like that,” he said, in a voice that was quiet and low, but, at the same time, heavy with authority. It was the same tone he had used when Joanie and Sam were young, when they had been afraid of ghosts and thunderstorms.

Morse calmed for a bit, as though willing to be reassured, but then, suddenly, he lurched again, closing his eyes tight as a beam of red light swept out over the steps, into his eyes, out of the darkness.

 

“The ambulance is here,” Fancy called, unnecessarily. It was difficult to miss, the rotating red light roving over the darkened street, lighting up their faces one by one.

 

The sight of the lights seemed to break through to Morse in a way that Jakes’ ministrations and Thursday’s low and soothing words hadn’t; he ceased his struggle altogether, going oddly still.

“Ambulance?” Morse asked, faintly.

“Yeah,” Jakes said. “That’s what they usually send for when newly-minted PCs decide to call their own shots and pursue mad killers on their own.”

 

It was strange, watching the sudden transformation take place on Morse’s stubborn face; it was as if he was deliberately rearranging his features into an impassive mask.

“I . . . I’m fine. I’m fine, though. I don’t need an ambulance.”

“That so,” Jakes snapped. “The state of my jacket says otherwise.”

“Why are you so angry?” Morse asked.  

“Why do you think?”  Jakes shot back.

 

And Thursday realized he ought to have been angry, too—there had been a reason that he had told Morse and Fancy to call them before setting out on any new leads, after all. This case was one of the most disturbing Thursday had seen in his long career—hardly the stuff he would put to two fresh-faced PCs who only the week before had been out settling noise complaints.

 

But anger, even righteous anger, wouldn’t come—it couldn’t surmount the sheer and overpowering surge of relief he had felt at finding Jakes kneeling over Morse, holding a jacket to his side, rather than the killer hovering over him, holding a knife at his throat.

 

Morse looked down at the jacket pressed to his side, and then, as if to show them just how well he was improving, he took hold of it himself.

Then he grimaced, as if he had just realized what it was that he held in his hands.

“Oh,” he panted, his voice coming in shallow, gasping breaths. “I’ve ruined your jacket. I’m sorry. I’ll . . . I’ll buy you a new one.”

“On a PC’s salary? Not bloody likely. Not one like this,” Jakes said.

“I can save up. I don’t spend much.”

“It’s nothing to do with the jacket, Morse.”

 

A medic, in the meanwhile, had made his way over to Fancy, to check on the well-being of the sleeping child he held in his arms, and another was heading over in their direction, to where the three of them sat, crouched on thesteps.

Thursday moved over, coming to sit alongside Morse. He wrapped one arm around his shoulder as if to brace him.

“Come on, lad.  Up you get. We’ll get you over to the ambulance, all right?”

Morse’s eyes went wide in the sweep of the red light.

“No. Please. I don’t need to go there. Look. It’s already stopped.”

 

He lifted the jacket and looked at the wound. Then promptly turned a delicate shade of green.

 

He swallowed. “See. It’s fine. Please. Please. I’m fine now.”

 

“Good,” Thursday said. “Glad to hear it. Then I’m sure you’ll get the go-ahead to come home as soon as they check you over at hospital.”

“I can’t. I can’t. I . . . .”

 

Morse’s words seemed to stumble and then fall to a halt as the medic approached; just beneath the surface of Morse's stoic face, Thursday recognized the same frantic look he had had on that first day he been down at the station, when he had torn his stitches, fighting over those papers with Jakes.

 

And just as then, Thursday heard the words behind the anxious expression, the words that would not come, loud and clear.

 

He’d been abandoned twice over—once by his father and stepmother, and then by a world that kept on turning without realizing he had disappeared.

The fear was there, clear in his face: the fear that if he was sent to hospital, to another small white room, that this time, no one might come back for him.

 

“All right,” Thursday sighed. “All right, lad."

Morse still watched him, slightly more hopeful, as if he were a man on trial, awaiting his verdict.  

“I suppose we might see if DeBryn is still in. He has the late rota, tonight.”

“Does he?” Morse asked, his face draining further from the shock of relief, his freckles standing out in the flash of the brilliant red light.

 

Jakes made a disparaging noise and shook his head.

 

Morse turned to look at Jakes, confused.  

“What is it?” Morse asked.

 

It was clear that Jakes thought he was indulging Morse, perhaps even coddling him—that he thought that Thursday ought simply to make Morse tough it out, go to hospital.

 

But the lad already had so many strikes against him. And now even Mr. Bright had betrayed him, flashing that file around.

Thursday didn’t have the heart to send Morse to hospital, to risk the chance that he might break down, that he’d let the careful mask that he was working so hard to keep up drop, that he might go to pieces in front of an audience.

Thursday by now knew the pattern well. It would all be enough to send Morse into a panic. Then he’d be embarrassed. Then he’d clam right back up again, prickly as hell, as it to preserve what scraps of dignity he had left.

 

DeBryn was a good man. He would understand. Make it all a bit easier for Morse. Why shouldn’t Thursday make things easier for the lad, if he could? Wasn’t as if Morse had an easy time of it so far, wasn’t as if he had any one much to see his side of things until this point.

 

Jakes shook his head again. “It’s nothing,” he said.  

“I’ll get you a new jacket,” Morse said. 

“Jesus. Will you stop with the jacket?”

“Come on, then,” Thursday said.  

 

Thursday nodded curtly to the medic.

"He'll be all right," he said. "I've got him."

Then he knelt down and hoisted one of Morse’s gangly arms over his shoulder, helping him to stand. For a few moments, he felt all of Morse’s weight bearing down upon him, until the lad righted himself, getting his feet underneath him.

 

He had made it half way over to the Jag, when another car pulled up, and a man and a woman leapt out of the car and then were running over to Fancy.

“Jamie!” the woman cried.

Morse turned and watched over his shoulder, as the woman, sobbing, scooped the sleeping boy out of Fancy’s arms.

"Thank you,” she gasped, holding the child and kissing the top of his head. “Oh, thank you.” 

 

Thursday cursed softly under his breath.

If only he had gotten Morse into the car half a minute earlier, he would not have seen that.

From the light that seemed to spread across Morse’s face, Thursday could tell that he was already thinking that it had all been worth it. That he would do the same foolish thing again.

*******

Morse eased himself down on the cold edge of the mortuary table; it was a relief, actually. The coldness beneath him seemed to leech some of the heat from the pain in his side.

“So, let’s see the damage, shall we?” DeBryn said.

The doctor held his hands half aloft, as if to show him that, for now, all he intended to do was to look at Morse’s injury.

 

Morse obediently removed Jakes’ jacket from where he had been holding it to his side. The thing was ruined, Morse was sure of it. And it looked fairly expensive, too.

 

Jakes’ flat, was, most likely, as bare bones as they came, but he  _would_  be the sort to put all of his money into his clothes, to put on a good outside show.

 

As much as Jakes sometimes seemed to detest him, as much as Jakes made it clear that there was something about Morse that needled him, that annoyed him no end, Morse had a difficult time taking the man’s shows of contempt personally.

He didn’t know much about Jakes, and he suspected that no one else did, either. Not really.

But he heartily suspected that whatever it was about him, Morse, that Jakes found so trying, was something indefinable, some indeterminate quality that he saw in himself.

Something he saw in himself, and he didn’t like.

 

And as such, there was nothing Morse could do about it. He didn’t know how he realized this through the fog of pain that clouded his mind. But he knew it was so.

There wasn’t much he could do about it.

He stared at the jacket, bunched in his hand.

 

“I’ve ruined Jakes’ jacket,” he said dumbly.

“Never mind that now, lad,” Thursday said. “We’ll replace it, that’s all.”

Morse scowled faintly. There was something wrong there, something that made him flinch. 

 

Morse set the jacket to the side and unbuttoned his torn shirt, pulling it off, gingerly, so that he sat in his vest, and then waited for the worst. 

DeBryn pulled at the frayed ends of the white fabric, to where the blood made the material stick to his wound.

The doctor was not a large man; he was neat and compact and efficient down to his bow tie, but his hands were surprisingly broad and square. Morse steeled himself against them, but when DeBryn lifted the material away, his touch was exceedingly gentle, far softer than Morse would have anticipated.

 

“Not too deep,” DeBryn intoned. “Thankfully.”

 

There was a note of reprimand there, in the last word, as if to let him know that it all could have turned out otherwise. But Morse didn’t have the strength to dispute it. The adrenaline of the chase and the anxiety he had felt under the threat of being sent to hospital had left him, leaving him thoroughly drained.

 

Instead, he looked at the doctor as through a haze of confusion, unsure as to how he should respond.  He couldn’t speak. He was a tumble of emotions— of relief that the child was safe, that he and Fancy had been on time, that he wasn’t taken to hospital, and of worry, too—as to what would happen next.

 

He felt as if he was the imperfect counterpoint to the doctor, with this composed round face, streamlined glasses, and calm conciseness. Even the man’s hair lay neatly trimmed and combed, so that the tips of each strand seemed to gleam in the lowlights of the mortuary. 

 

He would never be like DeBryn.

He would never be like that vision he had had of himself, of the man with the sharp blue eyes and elegant silver hair who he had imagined in the rearview mirror on his first day of duty.

 

“A clean cut like that’ll be a bugger to knit,” DeBryn said, assessing the wound. “It’s far better gashing yourself on something jagged.”

 

A glint of annoyance cut through the fog, then.

It certainly wasn’t as if he had gotten knifed on purpose.

 

“I’ll bear that in mind next time I chase a lunatic through Christ Church Cathedral,” Morse snapped.  

 

It was barely perceptible, but there: a quirk of a smile played at the corner of the doctor’s mouth. He had goaded him deliberately, then, trying to snap him out of his reverie.

 

“There’s not going to be a next time, though, is there?” Thursday grumbled from the corner. 

 

Morse looked at him, confused again. Of course, there would be a next time. Eventually. It was part of the job, wasn’t it?

 

“What led you there?” DeBryn asked. “To the Cathedral?”

“An anagram. ‘Frida is new tides.’ Saint Frideswide. The patron saint of Oxford. Edward Burne-Jones designed the stained-glass windows depicting scenes from her life in Christ Church Cathedral, so. . .”

“So there’s your Pre-Raphaelite connection,” DeBryn concluded.

“Yes,” Morse answered.

And it wasn’t so bad, getting stitched up while they were all talking. If they were talking, he didn’t have to think about it much—about the fact that his body was being sewn up in much the same way as Mrs. Thursday darned a sock.

 

Morse stifled a groan at the thought.

 

But then, the doctor began to speak about the first time he had been to the cathedral, to a concert, how it had been Mozart, Ave Verum Corpus, how it had been December and how all else other than the music had been still and quiet, so that you could feel the icy winter silence from outside. 

 

Before he knew it, DeBryn was finished, and he was pouring out three glasses of Scotch.

“Cheers,” Morse said glumly, as he took his in hand.

“Your health, surely!” DeBryn said. 

“Mmmm,” Thursday grumbled, unamused, but he clinked glasses with them all the same.

 

And they all downed their glasses in one go.

 

“It’s going to be tight and quite tender for the next few days,” DeBryn said, then, as Morse put a hand on the doctor’s shoulder to steady himself as he slipped down from the table.

“So. Bed rest. And my finest Broderie Anglasie notwithstanding, don’t exert yourself overmuch,” DeBryn added.

“But that madman is still out there somewhere. I’ve got to get back,” Morse said.

 

“You heard the doctor,” Thursday said, handing Morse a fresh white shirt.

“Mine, from the locker room,” he explained. “It’ll be a bit large, but it will do you until we get home.”

“But sir,” Morse said. “I can’t go home now. We were so close.”

“It’s not all about you, is it?” Thursday grumbled. “There’s others on the case.”

 

But it  _did_  seem all about him. It was  _his_  photograph, after all, that the killer had put up on Perez-Lopez’s mirror.

 

“Morse,” DeBryn interjected. “If he had decided to stab and not to slash, I’d presently be getting more acquainted with your anatomy than either of us might care for. Soon as not be heaving your tripes in a tray, if it’s all the same. Not just yet, at least.”

 

He said the words lightly, but his meaning was plain, nonetheless; he was clearly on Thursday’s side.

 

“Besides,” Thursday said. “If we have any questions about art, we can ask this Joss Bixby.”

 

Morse snorted at that.

Oh, yes. An “authority on Pre-Raphaelite art” who can’t tell a real Pieter Clasesz from a false one. That should work a treat.

 

Then he realized that Thursday was looking at him, suspiciously.

Morse hurried to turn his face away.

********

Win moved the kettle to the burner and went to the cupboard for the canister of tea. The house was dark and quiet—Joan and Sam had long since wandered off to bed—and the kitchen was illuminated only by the yellow light over the stove, casting odd shadows on the walls. The house had fallen into a hush, under the blanket of that peculiar sort of silence that falls over a busy household only at certain hours, deep in the night.

Win ought to go to bed herself, she knew, but she never did sleep well until the whole family was home and accounted for.

 

The kettle whistled, and she poured herself a cup of tea. She was going into the den to retrieve a bit of knitting, when the front door opened.

 

Fred was there, in his heavy coat, toting along Morse, who had one arm hitched up around Fred’s shoulders.

“What’s this?” Win asked. “What’s happened?”

“He’s been in the wars,” Fred said. “Lost a bit of blood. He’s all right, though.”

“Oh,” Win said, uncertainly. Morse was standing on his own two feet at least, but the expression on his face neither confirmed nor denied Fred’s last statement.

 

“Morse?” she asked. “Are you all right, dear?

 

Morse looked at her, blankly, as if, for the moment, answering her question was utterly beyond him.

He had gone quiet on them again, it seemed, but whether it was because he was embarrassed at having been wounded on duty or at finding himself the center of attention, Win could not say.

Fred gave her a knowing look, as if to tell her that Morse was all right, really, just tired.

“Perhaps we ought to get him a brandy,” Fred suggested, as he steered Morse down the hall.

 

Win nodded and went into the kitchen while Fred helped Morse into the den; she knew that Morse would not want the both of them there, hovering about.

 

It was an odd coincidence, really, Morse coming into their lives. At the beginning of the summer, she had begun giving serious thought as to what she might like to do, what with Joan and Sam leaving the nest.

A friend from down the street had suggested she come with her to night school, to take courses in social work.

“They’re offering classes, you know, to train people to help acclimate new immigrants. Help them with forms, with the culture, with getting settled, finding them flats and so forth,” she had said.

Win hadn’t thought she could do such a thing. She had been a housewife since she had left school. It would make more sense, she thought, to find a job cleaning offices.

 

But, after spending the last few months with Morse, she was beginning to think otherwise.

 

It wasn’t as if Morse didn’t speak English—on the contrary, he spoke it better than most of the people she had ever met. But it was as if there was something missing when he spoke, some key element between his words and what he wanted them to say.  So anxious he was to not impose himself on anyone, that the question he really wanted to ask got pushed aside, somehow.

It was like deciphering a code, speaking to Morse—learning to read the gaps between what he said and what he meant.

 

She opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle opener, and then went to the cupboard. It wasn’t brandy that Morse needed, but rather stout—something with a bit of iron, something to build his strength up.

 

She poured a glass, but, by the time she returned with it to the den, Morse had fallen asleep on the sofa, his long throat with its prominent Adam’s apple bent in a boneless curve, his head tilted against the back of the couch at a thoroughly awkward angle.

Fred took hold of Morse’s shoulders and shifted him, careful of his injured side, so that his head fell softly onto one of the gold floral throw cushions.

Then, he pulled Morse’s shoes off, one by one, and took his ankles in his broad and calloused hands, moving his legs up onto the sofa. 

 

 

Win had little illusion as to what those hands were capable of. Despite the hat stand rule, she knew all too well the places where Fred’s job sometimes took him.

The boys she had dated in school had all more sedentary types, destined to work in their father’s real estate offices. It was a little thrilling, stepping out with Fred, knowing he could pound any bloke who bothered her into the ground. If she wanted him to. Not that she did.

But he could.

He was a paradox of a man, rough around the edges, but yet gentle and empathetic, too—and it was this complexity that drew her to him.

 

She set the glass down at the side table so that it would be there when Morse woke, as Fred padded back out into the hall. When he returned, he was carrying his coat.

Win stood in the doorway and watched Fred as he draped the coat over Morse’s sleeping form, tucking the coat up under his chin, as tenderly as he had once done for Joan and Sam.

And Win felt a surge of love for him.

*****

 

“What's Morse doing down here in the den?” Sam announced, glancing in the door of the small front sitting room as he came pounding down the stairs. 

Win went out into the hall and put her finger to her lips. “Shhhh,” she said. “Let him sleep, then. Go on. Go and have your breakfast.”

“Dad!” he called, then, going into the dining room. He frowned when he saw the newspaper set out by the empty place. “Mum? Where’s Dad? And what’s Morse doing sleeping down here on the sofa?”

“Spot of trouble at work. He and Morse got called into the station late last night,” she explained. “Morse got into a bit of a scrape, and your father had to take him in for stitches. He's off duty today, so Dad went in early, with Sergeant Jakes.”

“Does he know that?” Joan asked, sweeping into the room. “Morse?”  

“He doesn't,” Sam said shrewdly. "Dad gave him the slip." 

"Don't be ridiculous," Win said. "Your father certainly doesn't go about giving people the ‘ _slip_.’" 

 

Win went into the kitchen for some butter and set it smartly on the table next to a plate of toast. 

 

"Oh, dear, you're right," Joan said to Sam. "He  _has_  given him the slip. I don't envy you, mum. We'd better think of some things to keep Morse busy." 

"Morse is on strict bed rest," Win said, tersely. "He's not supposed to be ‘kept busy.’" 

"Not to worry, Joanie," Sam said. "She's already thought of something. I can tell."

"What a thing to think," Win said. "No go on, the both of you, and finish your breakfast, or you'll be late for your bus."

 

Sam picked up the butter knife and began to butter his toast, a wry smile on his face.

 

They were just finishing up, when Morse—dressed in one of Fred’s overlarge shirts, his wavy hair sticking out at all ends—came stumbling sleepily into the dining room. 

Joanie's eyes went wide at the sight of him. "What happened to you?"

Morse looked down at his shirt and blanched—a faint trace of blood had seeped through the white fabric.

 

"Oh, no," he groaned, “Now I owe Jakes a jacket and Inspector Thursday a shirt, too.”

"Never mind that, love. I've gotten out worst stains than that,” Win said.

 

Morse, however, remained looking worried, unconvinced. Then, his eyes fell upon Fred’s empty chair. 

 

"Where's Inspector Thursday?" he asked. 

"He's already gone into the station, love."

Morse let out a cry of protest. "What? He gave me the slip?”

 

Sam and Joan exchanged looks and immediately burst into laughter.

 

Win threw them a dark look.

"He did no such thing, Morse,” she said. “You're on strict bedrest. Twenty-four hours. Fred told me. Doctor's orders.”

"But what am I supposed to  _do_  all day?" Morse asked.

"Why don't you get cleaned up and changed, and then there's a few things you can help me with. We can listen to records while we work. Won't that be nice?”

 

The bit with the records was a nice touch—she could tell that Morse was considering it.  

 

“Yes. That would be nice,” Morse said. “I suppose.”

*********

After Joan and Sam had gone off to work, Win settled them in the den. She spread a series of brightly-colored tea towels across the coffee table and then placed her box of silverware and her small silver-plated tea set, along with a pot of silver polish and a few clean rags, on top. Morse put a record on before joining her, perching on a chair on the other side of the table.

“My Aunt Reenie gave it to me as a wedding gift,” Win explained. “I thought we might give it all a polish, now that the weather’s getting nippy. I always use it at Christmas.”

 

This seemed to pique Morse's interest.

"Do you do many special things at Christmas?” he asked.

“Not particularly,” Win said. “That is, nothing that most families don’t do, I suppose.”

“And . . . what's that?” Morse asked.

 

And, once again, Win felt as if she had been left to read between the lines. Could it be that his father and stepmother didn't even take the time to make a bit of a to-do at Christmas?

 

“Well,” Win said. “Joan and I do quite a lot of baking. Christmas Eve we go to church for carols and services. We have a tree. We have lots of ornaments, and the kids each have their favorites that they like to place. Joan has a glass rocking horse, for example, that she always puts near a bulb, so that it will reflect the light.”

 

Morse nodded, taking this in, as if he were an anthropologist out on a field trip.

 

“Do you have anything special you like to do, Morse?”  Win prompted.

 

Morse seemed slightly taken aback by this.

 

“No,” he said. “I mean. It was nice, Christmas. When my mother. . . . .”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but Win understood that he was bypassing any Christmases with his father, and was instead going back in his memory to the years when his mother was alive.

“We didn't have a tree. It's not a Quaker tradition. But she always baked a lot. It made the house smell cozy, all full of sugar and cinnamon and nutmeg. One year, I had a new sled. I don't know how she bought it. It must have been dear. And she always knew what books and records I liked. She never bought me socks, or anything like that.”

Morse set down a fork he had been polishing and looked up. “I mean she  _did_  buy me socks. But not as a present.”

“Of course,” she said. “Not too many children look forward to socks as Christmas gifts.”

“No,” Morse agreed. There was a little note of melancholy there that Win couldn’t quite decipher.

He picked up a spoon and began polishing it; he was doing a thorough job of it, but it was odd—he kept looking into the back of it, as if looking at his reflection, as if willing his reflection to change.

When he noticed she was watching him, he flushed red. 

 “So? What’s this one we’re listening to, then?” she asked, changing the subject.

“It’s _Das Rheingold_ ,” he said. "There are two more parts after it, if you like it." 

*******

Polishing Win’s modest silver service kept Morse busy for a few hours. She had thought that, having completed a task, he might be content to sit and rest more properly while she prepared lunch, but, only a few minutes after she began working in the kitchen, she heard the sound of the vacuum cleaner coming from the den.

 

“What’s this then?”  Win asked, striding into the room.

 

Morse looked up at her, confused, as if he didn’t know what he was doing wrong.

“Isn’t this when you normally do the hovering?” he asked. 

 

Win laughed. “I can’t be as predictable and Hausfrau as that.”

Morse’s eyes went wide, as though he feared he had offended her. “No. There’s nothing wrong with staying on schedule. Gwen was always wont to wait till things were in a terrible way, and then she'd get short-tempered and start shouting at everyone.”

 

He flushed then, as if he had said too much.  

By ‘everyone,’ she assumed he meant himself.

 

“It’s nice. For Joan and Sam and Inspector Thursday. I mean... It must be nice for them to come home to a place that’s so neat and cozy. I’m sure they appreciate it,” Morse said.

Win rather had her doubts about that, but it was kind of him to say so.

 

Just then, there was a ring at the door.

Win went to answer it, and, as soon as she left the room, she heard the vacuum start up the again.

Win shook her head, taking a deep breath to hold her patience, and then opened the door.

 

It was Anthony Donn, trim in a dark blue suit, his fine-featured and typically laughing face looking oddly set.

“Tony,” she cried. ‘How nice to see you.”  

 

The hoover abruptly shut off. And then Morse was striding into the hall.

 

“What are you doing here?” Morse said.

 

Win took another deep breath. It wasn’t typically the way one greeted a friend at the door.

He really was an awkward sod.

 

An odd series of expressions seemed to flicker over Tony’s face—relief, followed by uncertainty.

 

And who wouldn’t feel uncertain with a greeting like that?

 

“I came to see you. It’s in all the papers. The rescue down at Christ Church,” Tony said.

 He smiled, then, and his whole body seemed to relax, as he took in Morse’s apparently unharmed form.

Then he laughed and said, “The papers made it sound as if you had nearly got yourself more or less cut in half.”

 

“What?” Morse cried. He turned on his heel at once and went back into the dining room, leaving Tony standing out on the stoop.

Win opened the door wider and said, pointedly, “Please, won’t you come in?” hoping that Morse might cotton on, but he was already frantically scrabbling at the newspaper.

Then he let out a cry of despair.

 

 _“'Oxford City Police rescue abducted child, killer flees the scene.'_ ” It’s her! It’s this Miss Frazil. Why does she hate me so?  Oh, god.”

 

He collapsed into the chair and buried his face in his hands.

 

“It’s my fault. I should have called first. I . . . But I  _did_  tell Fancy to call. It didn’t make sense for us to lose his track completely but. . .. Oh god.”  

“I’m sure they know you did your best, Morse. Fred said as much,” Win said.

“Did he?” Morse asked. “The paper makes us sound like a bunch of bumbling Keystone cops, letting him get away.”

“It says nothing of the sort,” Win chided. “You found the boy, didn’t you?”

“What have I done that she should hate me so?” Morse said.

“I don’t think she  _hates_  you, Pagan,” Tony said. “It’s just her job, isn’t it?”

“Mmmmmmm,” Morse said, glumly.

“I’m glad to see you’re all right,” Tony ventured.

“Mmmmmm,” Morse said.

 

Win couldn’t help but repress a sigh.

Could he at least sit up and get his face out of his hands?

 

“It was very nice of Tony to come by to see how you were doing, wasn’t it? It was nice for him to come all of this way, wasn’t it, Morse?” Win prompted.

“Mmmmmm,” Morse said.

 

“Eh, yes,” Tony said. “I thought....  I thought we might go for a drive. Take you out of yourself.”

Morse, finally, looked up.

“Really?”

“Yes,” Tony replied.

“Where?” he asked, warily.

“It’s a surprise.”

“Mmmmmm,” Morse said, putting his face back in his hands.

 

“There you are,” Win said. “That sounds perfect. Why don’t you go and sit in the car and have a nice drive? You were just despairing of having nothing to do.”

Morse looked up, his face crestfallen, and Win understood at once: he thought she was trying to get rid of him.

 

Well, she was, but not because she was tired of his company.

 

Joan and Sam were right.

She was running out of things for him to do. Things that would keep him sitting in one place.

 

Still, she did not want for him to think that she was giving him the bum’s rush.

 

“Or,” she said, “we can sit down and have a nice cuppa. Fred said he might be coming home for lunch to see how you are doing, if he gets the chance.”

“No,” Morse said, a bit loudly. “No, that’s all right. We don’t want to be any trouble.”

 

Morse stood up, then, looking pale. For a minute, she thought he had torn his stitches. “We’ll just be going.”

”Morse?” Win asked.

“No. That’s all right, Mrs. Thursday. We’ll just go.”

 

And then he was all but hustling Tony out the door.

 

After they closed the door behind them, Win went back into the kitchen to put the sandwich she had made for Morse back into the fridge.

Who knew what that was all about.

But one thing was for sure.

Helping a family of Kenyan Asians secure a flat in Iffey ought to be a snap after learning to interpret Morse.

***************

“That was sort of . . . . abrupt, wasn’t it?” Tony asked, as they pulled out onto the main road. “It seemed as if Win was eager for us to all have a cup of tea. I wouldn’t have minded staying for a bit.”

Morse swallowed and turned away, looking out of the window.

“Inspector Thursday saw us the other night,” he said.

“What?” Tony asked, his voice oddly breathless.

“At my birthday. He saw us out of the window.”

“Is he going to call the police?” Tony asked.

“He  _is_  the police,” Morse said.

“You know what I mean, Pagan. Is he going to make a complaint?”

Morse frowned. “I don’t . . . . I don’t think so. He just said. . . . he didn’t want to see it again.”

“What did he mean by that, do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, how as he behaved since then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Pagan. This is important.”  

“He . . . . I don’t know. He acts just the same as before. As if it never happened.”

Tony nodded, thoughtfully. And then steered off through the trees.

 

********

 

They sat on a blanket spread out on the shore of Lake Silence. It was one of those fall days when sun finds its way through gray skies, shining with a filtered light that makes yellow leaves glow like candle flames.

“Do you think that is what inspired stained glass windows? Looking at the way the light glimmers down through autumn leaves?” Morse asked. “Doesn’t it look like stained glass?”

But Tony was looking thoughtfully at the lake.

“Tony?”

“Yes. Sure.”

“Well, do you?

Tony shook his head. “This is all my fault,” he said.

“What is?” Morse asked.

“What do you think? This trouble with Inspector Thursday.”

Morse scowled. “I don’t think there’s  _trouble_ , necessarily,” Morse said. “Inspector Thursday hasn’t really said anything much about it.”

 

It was as if he and Thursday had forgotten all about the incident, what with all of the tumult at work, and he was about to say as much to Tony, but he wasn’t sure if Tony might take it the wrong way.

 

“He’s a  _police_   _officer_ , Pagan. And we were right in his driveway. Committing gross indecency.”

 

Tony lay back onto the blanket, so that he was looking up through the branches, into gray skies.

“I shouldn’t have . . . ,” he began. “It’s just. . . . I’ve been wondering, since that night at the party. Sometimes, when we’re drunk, we do things that are just plain stupid—but sometimes, it’s an excuse to do the things that we have always wanted to do, but weren’t quite brave enough for.”

“Liquid courage,” Morse said.

 

Morse lay down on the blanket, too. It felt good to stretch out, to take all of the weight off of his injured side.

  

“We don’t have much chance to be alone and. . . . I . . . . I don’t know. We were there. And I couldn’t help but wonder. . .”

 

Tony let the sentence fall off, and Morse could tell that he wanted him to be the one to pick the thread of it up again, to steer him in the right direction.

 

Had it all been a mere lark, a drunken pass, a case of any port in a storm? Or was it something Morse had been building himself up to for a long time, but had feared to admit even to himself?

 

There were a lot of things he could say: but which were true and which were kind, Morse wasn’t sure. The fact of the matter was, he hadn’t thought about it much, about what had happened between him and Tony—he’d been preoccupied with the case.

But he felt somehow that wasn’t something he ought to admit to Tony.

 

And so he said nothing.

He just let the wind blow over their faces, and the sky was gray and the leaves were yellow, and maybe they didn’t have to decide on anything just yet. . . maybe they could take this fledgling love or attraction or foible, or whatever the hell it was, and simply drive around in it, just as they had today, perhaps they could just drive around and just see where it went, let it be a surprise, as Tony said, as the scenery changed around them.

 

But there was one truth, at least, that Morse felt he owed to him.

“Inspector Thursday thinks. . . . I think that he thinks perhaps I’m using you,” Morse said.

 

Tony winced a bit.

“How so?” he asked.

 

“Well. Because you already know. About that. He thinks I’m thinking that, if I stay with you, it will, sort of, I suppose, spare me from ever having to tell anyone else about it.”

Tony huffed a rueful laugh. “Sort of an intuitive leap for a police officer,” he said. 

“He’s a detective. Of course, he makes intuitive leaps.” Morse said, a bit waspishly.

 

That was what they did, after all.

 

And his intuitive leap had been proven right: the note with the anagram was proof positive that Frida’s case was connected to the others. How else would the killer have known her name?

But, yet, Fancy had a point, loath as he was to admit it. Did Val Todd really not remember when he last saw Frida? The pageant was his livelihood, after all. Such men as Todd took care of their own self-interest, if nothing else.

 

Tony looked subdued, as if he knew he had misstepped.

 

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Hmmmm? Oh. I don’t think so,” Morse said.

“No?” Tony asked.

“No. It’s not a logical conclusion.  If it’s only because you already know that I  . . . Well. That doesn’t explain why it was you I told to begin with, does it?”  

Tony looked unconvinced at that. “Well. You might have told me regardless. There was a time, we told each other everything. That’s what friends do.”

 

The wind blew up again then, stirring at the leaves, sending them rustling.

 

“Sun’s going already,” Morse said. “The year’s turned. Pretty soon it will be bonfires and hoar frost. Mist will rise. Winter’s on its way.”

Tony sighed. “So. What is that supposed to mean, then?" he asked. "Ask me no more for fear I should reply?” 

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“What would you say?” Tony said.

“I don’t know,” Morse said.

 

It was too much. Just a few months ago, he had no words at all.

 

He stretched his legs out further before him, turning slightly to the right, to ease even more weight from off his injured side. It was a miracle, the lake, a miracle how far he could see across the water  . . a miracle how far up he could look into the sky. For so many years, he could see no further than the furthest wall.

 

But now, here was the world made whole: the black lake, and the candlelight yellow and blaze of orange leaves, the gray of the skies, the glimmer of Tony’s blue eyes that let him know that for now, it would be enough—for now, all was forgiven.

 

He turned to Tony and closed his eyes, and leaned in, meeting Tony’s mouth in a kiss, and his lips were warm on his, so warm and soft and insistent that Morse turned his face for a better angle, so that his lip grazed Tony’s bottom lip, aiming for that burn of stubble just below that was like a shiver.

Tony raised his hand and pushed Morse’s hair back from his temple, and the carefulness of his touch and the familiar scent of his aftershave and the gentle strokes moving like a breeze through his hair dissolved all of the tension that had settled in Morse's frame, easing somehow even the pain in his side.

He lay there and kissed Tony, and it was easy.

Why shouldn’t something be easy?

There was so many things that were difficult and harsh and cruel—he had to believe there was a space for softness, somewhere in the world.

As the warmth of Tony’s body pressed closer and ever more closer to his, Morse felt a shiver of coldness, a drop of rain on his shoulder. And then another.

And then another.

And the drops fell upon them with a sound like wind chimes. It was such a lovely sound. He had missed that, almost more than he would have imagined; the simple sound of the shimmer of rain.

 

Rain.

It had rained, a bit, on the day they found Frida.

It had rained and the flowers had all washed away.

That’s where he should go, if he wanted to make a thorough job of it. To make sure he wasn’t making too many connections. He needed to find a way to get back to Beaufort College, to see if there were flowers.

 

Tony put a hand on his shoulder, then, and broke away from the kiss.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked. 

“Hmmmm?” Morse asked.

“For a minute, it seemed as if you were far away again.”

“I’m right here,” Morse said.

 

But instead of kissing him again, Tony sat up, and cast a glance up at the sky, as the rain fell heavier around them.

“I suppose we should get out of this rain,” he said.

“Yes,” Morse said. “I suppose we should.”

But neither of them, for a long while, made the first move to go.  

 

********

Morse opened the door, careful to wipe his wet shoes on the mat before stepping inside.

“Mrs. Thursday?” Morse called. “I’m back.”

But he was greeted only by the sound of the vacuum. Morse quirked a smile. He knew she wouldn’t let the day pass without giving the den a good working over.

The rain outside gave the house an extra cozy feel; it was a feeling almost like he had had as a child, coming home from school when his mother was still alive.

 

The only trouble was, Mrs. Thursday would likely make a fuss when she saw how soaked he had become. She would insist he sit and rest with a cup of tea.

 

But he couldn’t rest. Because of the question of the flowers.

It would be such a confirmation of his understanding of the case, if Frida’s death fit the pattern more completely. The other two victims had been manipulated in some way, as Bixby had said. It was almost as if they had meant to be found. Whereas Frida was simply lying in an underground stream. Posed like Ophelia, it was true, but it was also true what Thursday had said--hat alone might have been a coincidence.

 

He would feel better if he knew. He’d be all right: He would only go straight to the college and back, satisfy his curiosity, one way or the other.

Then he would do whatever Mrs. Thursday said.

 

He pulled a slightly battered umbrella from the stand and then ducked back out into the rain.

*******

Morse slogged along under the heavy stone archway of the underground stream, following the course of the water from where they had found Frida— and then he saw him, standing there, at the end of the canal, looking meditatively at a nest of red and yellow flowers that had been caught by an outcropping of stone.

He was dressed down for Bixby, standing with his hands on his hips, wearing a suede brown jacket and black pants with a round, ornate belt buckle the size of a small globe.

He also, wisely, was wearing a pair of knee-high fishing boots. He had planned on coming out here, then.

 

Morse made his way over to join him.

“So. why are you here?” Morse asked.

“Same reason you are, I suppose. To see if there might be flowers. To see if her death truly fit the pattern.”

 

”No. I mean, why are you here at all?”

 

Bixby huffed a laugh. “I’m afraid you’ll have to put that question to my parents. Or is it on a more metaphysical basis we’re speaking? My but you’re blunt. Has anyone ever told you that before?”   

“You know what I mean,” Morse replied. “Why are you on the case?”

Bixby considered him for a moment, as if deciding something, and then said, “There were a few art heists, years ago, back in ’58. Turned out to be a bit of an inside job. An art restorer who had joined a communist cell was going about, casing places as he made his rounds. The money he raised selling the paintings that he had stolen went straight toward bribing a low-rung official over at Special Branch, a man with a chip on his shoulder and access to files and a copying machine.”

“And they thought perhaps something similar might be going on now?” Morse asked. 

“Mmmm. Fit the same sort of random pattern. One stolen from a private collector, one from a museum."

"And so how was it that you got sent in?" 

“Those who I work with know I have an interest in art. That I collect, as a hobby," Bixby said. "They thought I could pass myself off well enough, to be in a position to look further into the case." 

 

Morse laughed. “Oh, yes. I remember seeing one of your acquisitions. That copy of that Claesz. The real one hangs in the . . . “

“The real one hangs in the Rijksmuseum,” Bixby said. “I think you might have mentioned. Once or twice.”

 

Bixby turned and looked at him, his hands still resting on his hips. “Speaking of slip-ups, old man, I would have thought you might have kept a straight face. I thought you were going to blow my cover.”

“What cover?” Morse said. “You are Joss Bixby.  . . . . Aren’t you?"

“Mmmm,” Bixby said. “I thought I might just go with it, since people have been to my parties, seen that I have an eye for art. That I collect. But no. I’m hardly a scholar. In situations like that, it’s best to overwhelm your audiences with a bit of theater, a bit of swagger, so that they don’t stop to question. Your sniggering like a schoolboy didn’t help much. Nor did your need to correct me about my own damn painting.”

“Your calling me Morse didn’t help, either.”

“Did I?” Bixby asked.

“Yes. Inspector Thursday noticed.”

Bixby winced. “Well. It’s no matter. It looks like this is your department after all. I just came here today to confirm it.”

“You don’t think it’s espionage, then?” Morse asked. 

 “No,” Bixby said. “I don’t think it has anything to do with anything like that. I think actually that Cronyn, as ghoulish as the man is, is onto the right idea. I think it’s a complete madman.”

 

He crouched down over of the dark stream, where wayward flowers spun in the gentle current brought on by the rain.

 

“What do you think . . . of these flowers? Some of these roses. . . .” Bixby began. 

“They are a little too perfect, aren’t they?” Morse asked.

 

Morse picked a yellow rose up from out of the water. “It’s perfect. It’s still folded. Not like they are from some windblown garden, but rather from the florist shop.”

 

“I think they are from a florist. Might be a place to check,” Bixby said.

He looked up then, sharply.

"What of that costume, anyway? The one the painter was wearing, Perez-Lopez. Anyone check that out?" Bixby asked. 

Morse shook his head. "A dead end. There are at least a dozen theater companies and clubs in Oxford. And they don't exactly keep careful inventory on costumes from past productions. It all tends to get stored away in closets and attics somewhere. My friends even swiped a whole collection, once, when I was up, for a party we had, out at an old country house."

"Really? What production?" Bixby asked. 

"The Bacchae. By Euripides.”

Bixby raised his eyebrows. "I suppose I don't even want to know," he said.

 

He handed him the flower. "Well. Check round the florists. Yellow and red and pink, too. Usually people order all one color, don’t they?"

“I would think so. At any rate, someone might bound to remember someone who bought so many flowers.”

 

“They might,” Bixby said. Then he brushed his hands in satisfaction. "Well, I’m off to fill out my report. Looks as if my job here is finished. And yours has just begun.”

 

He turned, then, to go. “I’m staying at my house out on Lake Silence for the year. Come by, anytime you'd like, old man. You can have a go on my hydroplane. It looks as if you’re dressed for it already."

 

Morse looked down at his drenched clothes, ruefully. He was a disaster, really, his sopping shirt sticking uncomfortably to his injured side. 

“Touché,” Morse said.

But by the time he looked up, Bixby had gone.

 

Morse really ought to be getting back, too, he knew. They'd all be cross at him for getting into such a state. There was only one other place he needed to stop by first. And then he'd go home and be the perfect convalescent, before anyone had even noticed he was gone. 

*****

Thursday and Jakes walked up the wide steps of Christ Church cathedral; the vicar, a mournful looking man, angular and ascetic in his black suit and collar, was already waiting for them by the door.

“Thank you for coming out, Inspector,” he said. “It’s just this way.”

Thursday took off his hat and Jakes followed just a pace behind, as the vicar led them up into an old gallery. 

 

“It must have been stolen last night,” he said. “And we only noticed it just this morning.”

He beckoned then to a deep red wall, where a half-dozen paintings were hung, all of rather medieval-looking but, at the same time, romanticized angels.

"All by Edward Burne-Jones, the same man who designed the windows here. He painted a whole series of them. ' _The more materialistic science becomes, the more angels I shall paint. Their wings are my protest in favor of the immortality of the soul,_ '" the vicar quoted, pedantically. 

 

He gestured then, to a blank space on the wall, to where a painting was missing. "Just there," he said. "It was just there." 

"Do you have a picture of what the painting looks like?" Thursday asked. 

"We do," the vicar said. "Right here in the catalog." 

 

He handed them a booklet with information about the art and architecture of the cathedral, one designed to be sold as a souvenir to tourists. It was opened to a page featuring a painting of an angel, a young man in a blue robe, with a thin, epicene face, and heavy, tawny curling hair. He was playing a golden instrument, like a pipe, or a clarinet.

 

Thursday wasn't too keen on art, but there was something familiar about the image.

Jakes took his cigarette out from the corner of his mouth and exhaled thoughtfully, drawing his heavy brows together.

"It looks a bit like Morse," he said.


	7. Chapter 7

Trewlove filed away the last of the day’s reports and closed the drawer with a bit more force than was strictly necessary.

Any of the PCs could have done the job, but it seemed as if she was always left working late, always left to do the filing—she supposed it was because she was ‘the girl.’

Just that morning, one of the PCs had actually asked her to make him a cup of tea.

Not bloody likely.

 

The place was quieting down for the evening, now, and only Morse and Fancy remained, off in one corner, talking in low voices, their faces cast in the yellow light of the lamp that stood on the desk between them.

It was odd; she had been told that Morse was off-duty for the day, that Dr. DeBryn had put him on bedrest after the incident at Christ Church Cathedral the night before. She had half a mind to go over and find out what it was they were up to, but then, suddenly, they jumped up, taking with them a map and the phone book, and then they were heading out the door.

 

She looked after them, frowning.

There was a bit more to the pair, she was beginning to think, than met the eye.

And someone else out there seemed to be cottoning on to that, too.  

 

It didn’t make much sense, really, that someone would have bothered to start such rumors about them, to paint them as a pair of never-do-wells, a couple of jokers drinking on duty, sipping cocktails by the pool at some posh studio, far off their appointed beat.

They were only two young PCs, after all. Hardly worth anyone’s notice in the scheme of things.

 

Why go to such lengths to discredit them?

 

They were different, that much was certain. They seemed to fit in with the climate of Cowley Station even less than she did herself.

It had surprised her, that Fancy would so take up the cause of Frida Yelland, whose missing persons photo—left at the station by her melancholy stepfather—had been the source of much sniggering in the nick.

“Wouldn’t mind getting lost with a bit of that,” one charming constable noted, when Trewlove had pinned Frida’s photograph to the pegboard. 

 

That Morse would champion the cause of a young woman who worked in a bread factory seemed par the course. It was unkind to say, but it was clear that Morse would be used to siding with the underdog. He seemed the sort to have been the target of playground bullies since the first day he started school.

But Fancy—Fancy she had considered, at first, to be the worst of the lot.

 

Presumptuous little bugger.

 

After that first week, however, she began changing her mind.  Soon, it became clear that he avoided the company of the more boisterous constables as much as Morse did, looking at them now in then with a thoughtful but perplexed expression, as if he was disappointed somehow, as if they had all failed to reach his expectations.

When, speaking of Val Todd, Fancy had said, “perhaps the girls think one old creep is very much the same as another,” Trewlove had to stifle a laugh.

It was true enough; although she doubted that such a thought would have occurred to any of the other would-be Romeos she encountered.

Day after disappointing day.

 

It occurred to her that—in his own way—Fancy was perhaps as tangled up in society’s expectations as she was.

Perhaps his bravado and all of those quips that so mixed the mark were actually merely the consequences of him feeling forced into an ill-fitting mask. 

 

Despite the laughing hazel eyes and confident smile, he was, at core, a bit shy, painfully aware of his youth and inexperience. 

 

He was not made to be a wooer.

 

In a more equitable world, he could have just been himself. He wouldn’t feel pressured to play a game for which he was so ill-equipped.

In a more equitable world, he could have just happily gone about his business, flashed his warm and genuine grin now and again, and waited for  _her_  to ask  _him_  out for a pint.

 

**********

Thursday managed to set the telephone receiver down before he started shouting.

“Damn it. Where’s Morse? Win says he went out for a drive with some old pal of his from when he was up, but his friend says he dropped him back off at the house hours ago,” he said.

 

Jakes merely raised his eyebrows, shaking his head slightly, as if nothing Morse might do or not do could surprise him.

 

Where had Morse gotten off to? He was supposed to be at home, on bedrest. It was a fine time for him to go unaccounted for, a hell of a thing.

 

Because the image of that painting—of the young man with the heavy tawny hair and the big blue eyes—was becoming more emblazoned on Thursday’s retinas with every passing minute, like the harsh red of a stop light.

It was a warning. He felt it down to his bones.

 

WPC Trewlove passed through the office then, on her way back from dropping off some files with Mr. Bright.

“PC Morse?” she asked. “He just signed in an hour or so ago; I just saw him downstairs, taking to Constable Fancy. I thought it was strange. Isn’t he meant to be off today?”

 

Well, of course he had come in. Of course, he couldn’t keep off the case for one hot minute.

 

“Yes, yes, he is meant to be off today,” Thursday said, heavily.  “Thank you for letting me know, Constable.”

“Well,” she hastened to correct him, “They’re not there, now. They left. Perhaps a half hour ago?”

 

Thursday sighed.

They weren’t off pursuing inquiries again, were they?

“Thank you, Constable,” he said.    

********

Thursday thundered down the stairs with such heavy steps that one DC, who was sauntering ahead, just leaving for the night, scrambled to get out of his way.

 

With any luck, Morse and Fancy would have reported in to their duty sergeant, would have let him know where it was they were going.

 

He threw open one of the glass-paneled doors and stormed into the general offices and over to the duty desk.

“I’m looking for Morse,” he said.

“I haven't seen him,” the young sergeant sitting behind the desk said. “But I just got in, for the night rota.”

The sergeant tilted his head and looked at him, then, considering. “I thought Morse wasn’t coming in today. Isn’t that so?”

 

Thursday didn’t have the time nor the patience to go through _that_ again.

 

“I want a look at the log book,” he said, shortly. 

The man didn’t need to be asked twice; he handed the heavy bound book over to Thursday at once. 

Thursday ran a thick finger down the columns of names. 

“Damn it,” he said. “He signed in, but he never signed out. Where’s he off to?”

 

Just then, one of the doors to the main office opened, and Thursday turned at once, hoping it might be Morse or, at least, Fancy.

Instead, it was Sergeant Strange.

“Strange,” Thursday said. “Do you know if Morse called off shift? Did Fancy?”

“Morse and Fancy, sir?” Strange asked. “I just saw them, down at the Eagle and Child. Not a half an hour ago.”

 

Well, didn’t that beat all?

 

“Thank you, sergeant,” he said.

 

Thursday strode down the street, feeling as bad-tempered as an old bull harried by mayflies.

If he found Morse down at the pub, laughing and having a pint with that dolt Fancy, after he’d been on a wild goose chase trying to hunt him down, he thought he might finally explode with righteous anger. 

 

But if he didn’t find him down there . . . _then_ where the hell might he be?

 

As soon as he reached the pub, he saw them, sitting right in the goddamned window, all lit up in the glow of the lamps and the firelight like merchandise right on display. Goddamn it. It was a good thing that Thursday had found Morse first. Wasn’t as if he was making it difficult for who-knew-what sort of lunatic who might be looking for him.

 

He tore the oak door of the pub open with a force that might have sent it off its hinges.

 

They were sitting at a large, scarred wood table by the big front window, awash with the orange glow from the fireplace, their two heads bent—one tawny-russet, one dark—over a large, unfolded map and a telephone book.

Thursday thought Morse might have the decency to look sheepish when he saw him, but instead he greeted him with enthusiasm, his eyes wide with surprise.

“Sir,” Morse said.

He held out his hand then, displaying the blossom of a single, perfect yellow rose in his left palm.

“Look what I’ve found. In Trill Mill Stream. What do you make of this?”

 

But Thursday cut right across him, right to the chase. 

 

“What’s this? Are you on duty or are you pub crawling? You’ve signed in, but you never signed out. What do you think you’re getting up to, just disappearing like that?”

Morse’s face fell, then, and he frowned, looking confused. “Fancy signed us out,” he said, simply.

 

Immediately, the color fled from Fancy’s relentlessly cheery face, his expression more easily read than a fifteen-foot billboard. He had forgotten. Of course, Fancy had forgotten. What else was new?

“Looks like it slipped his mind,” Thursday surmised. “And since when do you trust Fancy to do anything? I thought you were the brains behind this operation,” Thursday said. 

 

Fancy seemed to crumple further at that. God, he was young, every expression and every little heartache showed right on his thin face.

Thursday had told himself he would never do this, humiliate a junior in front of an audience, but by god, it was time for Fancy to learn that little things like this had consequences. You signed out properly, you told people where you were going if you were on an inquiry, you didn’t just disappear when you were working on a case such as this.

 

Morse’s face, in contrast, was becoming more and more indecipherable. He regarded him warily, as one might an angry dog.

“Fancy is my partner,” Morse said, slowly. “Of course, I have to trust him. Don’t I?”

 

Fancy looked reassured, casting Morse a look of gratitude, but Morse’s eyes remained trained on Thursday, his nostrils flaring slightly, looking haughty as hell.

 

Well, this was never the way that Thursday would have wanted to go about it, but it seemed he had done what he never would have thought was possible.

He had made Morse and Fancy a true team at last, a united front against one and all.

Even against him. 

 

******

“I wish you wouldn’t talk to me that way, in front of other people. I’m hardly a child,” Morse said.

He sat up ramrod straight as he spoke, as if aware that his position—sitting there, behind him and Jakes, in the middle of the back seat of the police Jag—might belie the import of his words.

“It’s nothing to do with being a child, Morse,” Thursday said. “It’s been quite a few years since I was a child, and I still call in. It’s standard practice. There’s a reason for it. I call Win, too, as a matter of fact, if I’m going to be unexpectedly late.”

 

Morse scowled slightly, looking out the window, unconvinced.

 

“Besides that,” Thursday said, “You are supposed to be on bedrest. What do you think you’re doing, slogging along in Trill Mill Stream? You’re lucky you don’t get a raging infection. Don’t you know how filthy that water is? All the runoff from the street?”

“I was walking in it, not swimming in it,” Morse said.

“And the rain besides,” Thursday said. “Don’t you know you’re to keep a wound like that dry? It’s a good thing you weren’t in the war, that’s all I can say.”

“‘I just wanted to check. To see if there were flowers.”

“And what does that prove?” Thursday snapped.

“It doesn’t _prove_ anything,” Morse said. “But it _suggests_ the cases are connected.”

“I told you. I called the Tate Gallery in London. That painting you’re so on about, that Ophelia thing, is there, safe and sound,” Thursday said.

 

Morse slumped back into his seat.

 

“It doesn’t make any sense,” he said, as much to himself as to him or to Jakes. “That painting. ‘A Child’s World.’ It’s so simple, so prosaic. It doesn’t match the mood of the others.”

“So what are you saying?” Thursday asked.

“There were air holes in the casket. James Mills was never in any real danger. The killer . . . he’s not working on his project anymore. He’s not playing by his own rules. He’s just . . . He’s just playing with _us.”_

 

Jakes pulled a cigarette out of the corner of his mouth and pounded it out in the ashtray of the Jag, keeping one hand on the wheel as he maneuvered a turn.

 

“Aren’t you going to tell him, sir?” he asked.

 

Morse went as still as a rabbit.

 

“Tell me what?” he said.

Thursday sighed. The truth of the matter was, he was on the fence as to whether to tell Morse or not. Should the lad know about the latest theft, so that he might take greater care? Or was he better off shielded from the whole incident?

 

They had brought Morse—a mere PC of all of six weeks—onto the case for a bit of advice on art, a bit of background about the book that had been sent by post.

But now that Mr. Bright was in contact with that psychiatrist, Dr. Cronyn, and that art historian, Joss Bixby, it seemed as if they were up to their eyeballs in expertise, that they had enough advice to be going on with.

 

The safest course seemed to be to slowly extricate Morse off of the case.

 

But Jakes was already looking back at Morse in the rearview mirror.

“A painting was stolen last night. During the fracas at Christ Church Cathedral. It’s by Edward Burne-Jones, one of your Pre-Raphaelites. One he did in a series, the vicar there said. A series of paintings of angels.”

“Oh?” Morse said. “Well. He must have grabbed it on the way back down, after he knifed me, and I was too slow to catch up.”

“The thing of it is,” Jakes said, “Inspector Thursday and I saw a picture of the stolen painting in a catalog . . . and we think that it sort of looks like you.”

 

Morse went quiet at that.

 

Then he laughed, making a slow noise, like air leaking from a child’s balloon.

 

“That’s ridiculous,” Morse said. “I certainly don’t look like some soppy Victorian painting.”

He snorted for good measure, and looked again out the back window.

 

Thursday, watching him in the side view mirror, frowned.

Because as the minutes that Morse had remained unaccounted for had ticked by, Thursday had come to feel just the opposite; he had become more certain that the portrait was, indeed, meant to be Morse.

And now that Thursday was sitting here, looking right at him, he was sure of it: the big blue eyes, the austere profile, the aquiline nose. Even the golden pipe the angel held was a phrase taken right out of Ms. Frazil’s article.

And the killer knew, thanks to that article, that Morse painted, just as Frederico Perez-Lopez did.

 

Their silence, it seemed, must have spoken volumes.

 

“You. . . . you can’t be serious about this,” Morse protested. 

Thursday said nothing. 

 

“Are you taking me off the case, then?” Morse asked. “Because you can’t: Fancy and I have it all planned out, how best to cover Oxford so that we hit all of the florist shops. There were so many flowers. You should have seen them all. Someone is bound to remember who ordered so many of them. They’re roses, primarily. Red and yellow and pink. Someone is bound to remember something about the man who bought them. And then we’ll have a true lead, at last.”

Jakes swung the wheel of the car, pulling smoothly into the Thursdays’ drive.  

 

“Sir?” Morse said.

 “Take those wet shoes off before you get in the house, or you’ll stink the place up to high heaven,” Thursday said.

***********

 

Win descended upon them as soon as they came in the door.

“Morse,” she cried. “I’ve been so worried.”

Morse’s face seemed to undergo a paroxysm of confusion.

“I . . .. I wasn’t gone long. I just went to check on something.”

“You were gone for hours. And what with you, supposed to be resting. Why didn’t you tell me you were going out again?”

“You were busy. I just meant to duck out for a moment and come right back. I didn’t want to trouble you.”

 

Win patted his face fondly. “Well, don’t do it again. Next time, just take a moment and tell us where you’re off to, so we’re not left to wonder. All right?”

“All right,” he said.

She gave his face a final pat, as though satisfied by his answer, and began back up the hall, toward the dining room.

 

Morse watched after her, looking as melancholy and confused as a dog left out in the rain.

 

Incredible.

Thursday had thought before that Morse was being a right stubborn pain in the arse. Going off wherever he had a mind to, without giving anyone a second thought.

But gauging from the look of remorse on Morse’s face, Thursday was quickly reassessing his prior opinion.

 

He didn’t know. The lad honestly didn’t know. It never crossed his mind, that someone might worry about him.

What he had done that day was simply what he did. It was what he always did.

 

And, judging from what Thursday knew of Morse’s father and stepmother, such behavior may even have been encouraged, in the past.  It seemed, from the way they behaved, as if they didn’t care where Morse went, so long as he was out of their way, out of their hair.

 

It was decidedly so, then: Morse didn’t even know the basics, of what it meant to live among other people.

 

He never told anyone where he was going. He never called in. He never checked in. He just went off on his own, whenever the mood struck him, off on his solitary way.

And, five years ago, when he disappeared for good, no one was surprised, no one thought it was much out of the common way.

 

“Mrs. Thursday?” Morse said, calling after her, before she went around the corner, into the kitchen.

She paused and turned.

“I’m . . .. I’m sorry to have worried you, Mrs. Thursday,” he said, his voice stiff and oddly formal, as if he had never said such words before.

 

And Thursday felt a last fraying edge of his patience break.

 Sure, apologize to Win.

Where was _his_ apology? _He_ was the one who had spent a frantic half hour making phone calls, pounding all over the office and down to the pub like a madman.

 

Win nodded at him fondly, and then the kitchen timer was ringing, and she went to check on the potatoes.

 

******

In the dining room, Joan and Sam were laying out the plates and silverware neatly on the heavy lace tablecloth, politely pretending they hadn't heard what had transpired in the hall. 

“If it isn’t the prodigal son,” Sam joked.

Morse looked at him, uncertain, and then took his place in the corner, under the wall sconce.

 

At dinner, Joan chatted about the new teller at work, a girl who had come down from London, following a boy she had hopes of who had been admitted to Oxford, while all the while, Morse sat, looking subdued in his seat in the corner.

“Morse, will you pass the salt,” Joan said, abruptly breaking off from her story. 

 

Morse sat, his eyes trained on a single lace flower on the tablecloth, frowning as if he was tracing the patterns of the thread.

 

“Morse?”  Joan asked again. “You all right? Morse?”

 

“Yes,” Morse said, seeming to snap out of his reverie. He scowled again, as if he were replaying what she had just said in his mind.

Then he reached for the tall glass shaker of salt and handed it to her.

 “Sorry,” he said. “I’m just tired, I suppose.”

“I'll bet,” Thursday snorted. “Well, you'll have plenty of time to rest up tomorrow. You’re off duty for the day, constable.”  

 

Morse snapped to attention at that. 

 

“Dr. DeBryn said one day,” he protested. 

“Yes, and you didn’t do it, did you? He didn’t know you would be traipsing all over the place. You were supposed to rest. And keep that wound dry. So now you’ll do it tomorrow.”

“But Fancy and I have it all mapped out. Who else is going to go round with him to the florist shops and ask about all of those roses?”

“We'll find someone else to go round with Fancy,” Thursday said.

 

Morse snorted softly, as if he thought that a terrible idea.

 

“I thought you said you trusted Fancy,” Thursday said, shrewdly.

Morse opened his mouth, to give some stroppy answer, no doubt, but none came.

 

There. Hung by his own rope.

 

“But sir,” Morse protested, at last.

“Hat stand, Morse.”

Morse sighed.

“Sir.” 

*********

 

Morse sat snug on the sofa, wedged between Joan and Sam, watching the television screen blankly, as the blue light flickered in the darkness of the tidy room. 

He wasn’t ever much one for watching the telly, but it was nice, actually, sitting here in the evenings. Even though he didn’t pay much attention to the programs, it was nice to sit in the same room with the Thursdays, all gathered together at the end of another day, as they watched the screen.

It was a time to unwind, a time when he could sit with them without any words—or anything much at all, really—being expected of him.

A time in which he could be alone with his own thoughts, but not be alone, either.

 

He felt a warm and pleasant lethargy creep over his body, as his eyes, trained on the light, grew heavy. The sofa was deep and soft, and the blue flickering  light was soothing, and the room was warm, smelling of wool and tea and cleaning wax and coziness, and the lace curtains were drawn shut against the night.

It was in these moments that he felt that he was truly one of them, that he could almost imagine that he had lived with them here, always.

He chanced a glance at Inspector Thursday’s face. He looked tired—more relaxed than he had at dinner— but it was still there, a tension around his mouth, the edge of something around his eyes. There was a part of him, Morse knew, that didn’t always leave everything at the stand in the front hall.

 

He hoped he wasn’t still angry with him. He never intended that. To cause trouble. To make anyone . . . was it even possible? . . . . worry over him.

 

How to explain?

It wasn’t as if he had deliberately set out to be gone for so long.

But they had told him to rest.

And once he had felt the falling of the rain on his face, he knew that such a thing would be impossible.

Because he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it: the question of the flowers. He wouldn't be able to rest while his mind was still at work over it, wondering—were they following the correct trail? Were they getting off track?

If they got off track, might they lose the trail of the killer completely?

No.

No. He couldn’t rest. He couldn’t just sit. Not with something like that on his mind. He had to be certain. He had to know. And then, maybe . . .

 

Just then, there was a rustle from the corner in which Inspector Thursday sat in his heavy arm chair.  He had pulled a box of chocolates from a side table and was searching through it, irritably.

“Who took the last Savoy truffle?” he snapped.

 

“I did,” Morse said, miserably.

 

“Oh,” Thursday said.

He said it quietly, as if he was regretting the anger that had lay hidden in his voice, but it was all right. Morse understood. Morse heard it loud and clear.

He stood up, wincing at the pain in his side as he unfolded himself from the depths of the couch.

“Well,” he said. “I suppose I’m off to bed. Night all."

And then he went out into the hall and up the darkened stairs to his room at the end of the cooridor.

******

As soon as he went into his room, painted with trees and vines and blowing grasses, shadowed in the dim light, he went over to his bed beside the window and collapsed onto it.

He was, truth be told, tired to the bone. And his side ached.

He wasn’t sure if it was from the wound, or from some feeling inside, some feeling of wrong-footedness. He had made a hash of things, with the Thursdays. Like he always did.

He could see now, how he had gone from one place to the next, without much thought—how he had, truly, been gone for much longer than he had intended.

But how could he bear it, if someone else was killed? If someone was killed when he was just sitting about, in a lovely home, polishing silver and listening to Wagner?

It would be all his fault.

 

The fact of it was, the killer was playing a game.

And Morse couldn’t figure out the rules.

Of course, the man was mad, so perhaps there weren’t any.

Although, the first two crimes _did_ fit a clear enough pattern. In the cases of Alice Heverstone and Frederico Perez-Lopez, there had been a theft and a murder, a theft and a murder. 

But then, there had been a murder without a theft, in the case of Frida Yelland. And then, in the case of James Mills, a theft without a murder. 

 

Perhaps . . .  perhaps the killer had changed them, the rules?

Or perhaps he had changed his goal, his direction, in the middle of the game?

 

Just then, a soft knock sounded against his door.

Morse half-jumped, startled at the suddenness of the unexpected sound.

“Yes?” he called.

The door opened slowly. It was Joan and Sam— Sam in a pair of striped white and blue pajamas, Joan in a lavender dressing down made of chenille, lined with little puffed designs. 

 

“Are you all right?” Joan asked. 

“Yes,” Morse said, sitting up and drawing his legs in, leaning his back against the headboard.

Then he sighed. “I think your father is really angry with me.”

 

To Morse’s surprise, Joan and Sam laughed. 

 

“Yeah,” Sam said. “We recognized the symptoms.”

“What?” Morse asked.

 

They came in, then, Joan smartly snapping on the light on his bedside table as she walked over. Then, they both sank down on the foot of his bed.

It was odd, how they were looking as if it was all quite funny, when Morse didn’t see much to laugh about.

 

“What do you mean? _Symptoms_?” Morse asked. “I’m sure he’s never been like that with you. You’re his own children.”

 

This, they seemed to find all the more amusing.

 

“That’s how dads get, when you’ve set them off into a stew, isn’t it?” Sam asked. “It’s as close as they get to saying, ‘I love you.’”

Joan flicked Sam a severe look. “Dad worries, that’s all. I think . .  I think he’s seen a lot. In the war. And in London. When something’s off, he immediately fears the worst.”

 

Morse mulled that over. Thursday’s sharpness with him _was_ a far different sort of anger than the cold displeasure he so often felt radiating from his father.

Thursday didn’t seem angry at _him_ , exactly, but rather angered by what he had done.

 

Whereas his father had often seemed disgruntled by the mere fact of his very existence.

 

“I don’t know,” Morse said. “He’s never been so impatient with me before.”

“Well, you’ve been living here, what four, almost five months now? No need to stand on ceremony any more with you, is there?” Joan asked.

“No,” Morse agreed. “I don’t suppose so.”

“So,” Sam said. “There you are, then. Welcome to the family.”

“Mmmmmm,” Morse said, uncertainly.

 

It was pathetic; he should be used to Sam in his jokes by now, but still he felt it, a little twinge in his side, because even though he was twenty-seven years old now evidently, and should be beyond such things, there was a corner of Morse that wished such words might be true.

 

Joan smiled encouragingly and rose, snapping off the light again. “Night,” she said.

“Night,” Morse replied.

 

Once they had gone, Morse settled down again, stretching out, laying his head heavily against the pillows.

He turned to gaze out the window, as he always did before falling asleep, looking up into the rustling, golden, leaf-laden tree outside the glass.

 

And there was a face there, looking back at him. 

 

Morse sprang up with a gasp, his heart leaping into his throat.

 

And then the face was gone. 

 

Slowly, Morse leaned over, all the way until his forehead was flush against the cool glass of the window. There was nothing—only the branches outside, swaying softly with the night wind.

It must have been a shadow, then, cast onto the glass by the movement of the leaves. That was all. 

He was just imagining things in the way that he did back in those days when he had looked at the numbers for so long that they turned, in his mind, into people. People who spoke to him with different voices, the jovial threes and the skeletal sevens.

 

Morse lay back down, his heart still racing, his breathing jagged, and pulled the covers up over him.

He was tired. That was all. His brain was still whirring away, long after he had the ability to keep up with it.

 

He would have to trust to Fancy tomorrow. He would do as they asked of him. It was a small thing to ask, for all they had given him. 

 

He closed his eyes, but, although he was weary down to his bones, sleep wouldn't come. His mind was going in circles.

He lay there, watching the paintings in his room move in the darkness, as clouds passed over the moon, changing the tenor of the light.

 

And then his eyes grew heavier and heavier. And then, he was walking into it, right into his painting, right through the trees, until he came to a quiet street, lined with brick rowhouses.

He went up to one of them, the third from the end of the row, and opened the front door.

It was Frederico Perez-Lopez's house—and there it was, the mail piled up in the front hall, just as he remembered it.

Morse walked down the corridor and into the studio. It was a bright and airy room, filled with sunlight, and, as Morse ventured further, he saw him—Perez-Lopez himself, not dead, as Morse had seen him, laid out in the grass in Shotover Park. But standing there, painting.

 

He turned to him and smiled.

“Hello, Morse,” the man said.

 

And Morse startled.

 

How did he know his name?

 

“Hello,” he replied.

 

Voices were calling from outside, and Morse looked up, out through the French doors, into the garden.

There were two girls there, both with dark hair, milling about, strolling amongst the flowers. And Morse could scarcely believe it. It was Alice and Frida; they, too, were all right, after all.

He went to go out into the garden, to talk to them, to tell Frida that she should call her father, but when he opened the doors and went out, the summer-filled garden had disappeared; instead, he was a on a quiet street, and suddenly, it was winter, and the sky was white.

 

Then, he was walking along the sidewalk in his new uniform, looking up at the white winter sky, when suddenly, a hand bearing a cloth pressed firmly over his face, and he couldn’t breathe.

 

And then the world went to black.

 *******

Morse’s eyes were heavy, as if coins were resting upon them. He opened them, slowly. And then frowned in confusion.

He could see right away that something was wrong.

 

It was gone. His painting. All of it.

 

The walls were not covered in twisting vines bursting into green leaves, with swaying trees and breeze-filled grasses moving with imagined wind, or with wayward and playful circling birds. 

They were stark white. 

 

He got up from the mat on which he lay and placed one hand against the wall. He pressed upon it, and somehow his hand looked small and alone, as if lost in a snowstorm, in an unending sea of unforgiving and unrelenting white. 

 

It had finally happened.

He was mad.

He was going mad.

 

He had dreamt that he had gotten away, that he had walked out the door and down the stairs, that there were shouts of pain, that there was a large fair-haired man in the moonlit window, that a sheering heat had torn through his shoulder.

And then he was trundled into an ambulance, with rotating red lights, and taken to hospital, where a large man with hard but kind eyes came to visit him, a man who took him away to a house with a garden.  

And he had a new home and he found words and it was all a dream, but it had seemed so real, so real . .  . and he must be going mad, to have created such visions, to have created a delusion of an entirely different life, a life in which he was a police officer, a life in which, perhaps, he was finding a family, at last, a life in which, bizarrely enough, Tony was perhaps half in love with him.

 

He stood up, and whirled around, and threw himself against the wall.

And then he did it again.

And again.

 

And no door opened.

 

And it was wrong, all wrong. A door was supposed to open.

He began to pound then, heavily on the walls, and he pounded until his fists ached, until he felt something in his right hand buckle and give. 

All the while, he tried to shout, to cry out, but the words would not come. He could only make frantic and choked noises, like those of a dying animal. 

He threw himself, hard, once more against the door, but nothing happened.

It was latched shut. 

 

It was meant to open, he was meant to go downstairs, it had all seemed so real.

So real.

 

He collapsed, finally, his breathing heavy and jagged, into a corner, sliding down to sit on the floor. He put his hands to his head, as if seeking to hold on to something, as if to stop his thoughts from shredding him to pieces.

 

And, as he ran his hands through his hair, he felt something—something soft and ridged, something at once achingly familiar and unfamiliar, too. 

 

Carefully, his heart beating so hard as to make his whole body shake with the pulse of it, he pulled the object out from one tangled curl.  

 

It was a leaf.

A leaf from the linden tree.

From the linden tree outside his room at the Thursdays' house. 

 

It had been real.

 

He folded the leaf carefully, and held it to his nose, inhaling the scent of earth and of sweet and pungent life, of life beyond the white walls.

 

And then he was sobbing, noiselessly, with relief.

He put his hands over his face, and he was shaking, struggling for breath, because he could feel hot tears running down his face, but he was laughing, too, laughing even as he was trying to steady himself against the sobs that shook his frame, as he gasped, trying to get enough air in the closed room, because he was just so goddamned relieved.

 

It had been real. 

 

He put his hands down, resting them on the tops of his thighs, and sat there, leaning against the wall, inhaling deeply, trying to get his breathing under control.

 

It had been real.

 

He didn’t understand what had happened, how he had come to be here.

But he felt he could face anything, knowing that. 

 


	8. Chapter 8

For a long while, Morse sat slumped in the corner, holding the yellow linden leaf, steadying his breathing, steadying his thoughts.

 

He took a final deep and shuddering breath and exhaled sharply, looking around him, taking in the room.

Now that the initial sense of panic had faded, he realized that the place was not quite the same, after all, as the small prison in which he had lived for so long at that man’s house.

The walls were white, but the ceiling was much higher; it was almost as if he were in some sort of closet ... Or perhaps ... a dressing room? Along the far wall, wooden dowels had been installed, as if to hang clothes, and underneath, there were a series of white-painted shelves.

 

His eyes fell, then, upon the door. It seemed to be only a standard interior door, now that he looked at it. Not so very formidable.

 

Morse stood up, slowly, and carefully put the leaf into the pocket of his pajama bottoms. It was like a talisman, the leaf—a token of hope, a tangible reminder of another life, the life in which he now belonged.

Just the knowledge that it was there in his pocket made him to feel that it was true what Bixby had told him on that night last summer, when they had burned the set of papers out at the lake house, and, with them, the remnants of Morse’s former life.

 

Anything was possible.

 

Morse approached the door. And this time, instead of hurling himself against it blindly, he stepped back and kicked at it. 

Pain shot up through the ball of his foot and up into his ankle.

Damn.

If only he had a pair of shoes, he was sure he’d be able to kick it open in one go.

 

He stepped back and kicked again.

And again.

On the fifth kick, the wood around the lock and knob splintered with a satisfying crunch.

Now he would be able to open the door.

 

But what was on the other side?

 

He opened it, cautiously, and walked out, finding himself in an unremarkable bedroom; it was well-furnished—with heavy drapes and a high, four-poster bed—but somewhat blandly so. It was almost as if it was a room in an inn or a hotel. A practical room for faceless guests who might come and go at the end of each week, leaving little imprint of the time they spent there.

He walked about, his eyes trailing over the yellow, ornate floral wallpaper, the heavy dark maple wardrobe. There was even a small bath, white-tiled and simple and spartan—again just as one might find in a hotel.

He went to the heavy gold drapes and threw them open.

Behind the curtains, the room ceased to resemble a suite at an inn. There were heavy boards across the window, nailed deep into the plaster.

Morse pried at the wood, a bit, testing it, but there was little give. Perhaps there might be a way . . . if he worked at it . . .

Or perhaps he might try. . . . 

He went over to the door and ran his hand along the back of it. It was heavier, much heavier, than the one that separated the bedroom from the dressing area. He rattled at the knob. It was locked fast.

“Hello?” he called. 

 

“Ah,” a voice replied. “Feeling more rational, are we? Up to talking?"

It was a man’s voice, smooth and calm, without any trace of a distinctive accent.

“Who are you?" Morse shouted.

“You know who I am."

 

Morse swallowed.

 

It was true, and it wasn’t. He didn’t know the man’s name, but it was obviously the man he had been looking for.

Only, it seemed, that  _he_  had found  _him_.

 

“What is it you want?” Morse asked.

 

“You know what I want,” the man replied.

 

“No,” Morse replied. “Not really.”

“Go and have a look in the wardrobe.”

Morse turned to obey and then hesitated, torn between curiosity and a desire to tell the man to go straight to hell.

 

In the end, his curiosity won out.

He went to the high wardrobe and opened the door. It was filled with shelves—shelves packed with paints and jars of brushes and canvases.

 

“You want me to paint your portrait,” Morse said.

“That’s right. Not just any portrait. You know what I need. One to capture my genius, my very essence, my very soul. So I might endure, unscathed by time or death, for all eternity.”

Morse snorted. “Oh. Is that all?”

“Yes. That’s  _all_. I’m sure you can do better than Perez-Lopez. He wasn’t up to the task. So I had to give up on him. He was only good for a test drive, I’m afraid.”

 

Morse felt a surge of anger at that, and he spun around, as if the man were right behind him, rather than on the opposite side of the heavy door. 

 

“He wasn’t a  _car!”_ Morse shouted. 

 

The man laughed. “Well, well. Passionate, are we? Such resources of strength and conviction. We’re just alike you and I.”

 “I’m not anything like you,” Morse replied.

“Oh yes. I’ve been reading all about you. You’re perfect. You’ve taken the time to see into the heart of things, haven’t you? All the inner workings of the mind, of the heart, of the soul. So solitary. So introspective.”

“You gleaned all of this from a human-interest story in the Oxford Mail?” Morse asked, scathingly.

“Did I say that?” the man replied.

 

Morse went back over to the door and kicked it. And then he kicked it again.  And again.

And it yielded not in the slightest.

The man laughed.

 

“Go on. Get it out of your system. I know you’ll come to understand. I, too, know what it means to be abandoned by one and all. I, too, know what it means to be alone. Even when you’re sitting right amongst them, you’re still alone. Aren’t you?”

 

Morse kicked at the door again. “You bastard!” he shouted.

“Ooooo, touched a nerve, have we?” the man said. “Yes, I think I’ve found in you what I had given up on long ago. Like you, I have seen into the darkness, the darkness that others don’t have the courage to look upon. I also have suffered as others have tried to limit me, to limit what I can become. They call it kindness, but it’s weakness, mostly. People like that are so tiresome; they're forever trying to stop people like us from taking what we want.” 

“It’s not!” Morse shouted. “It _is_ kindness. Not even kindness really, refraining from committing  _murder_.  Just basic human decency.”

“And what would you know of that?”

 

Morse scowled in silence. The man was mad, twisted beyond any recognition of a man, just like the portrait at the end of _The Picture of Dorian Gray_. 

 

“Well,” the man said. “So. You have everything you need?”

“How am I supposed to paint you? I haven’t even seen you,” Morse said, dully.

“I don't expect perfection on your first attempt. I’m a man of many complexities after all. Just smart small. See if you can capture just a glimmer of me. Why don't you paint your woods? Why don’t you paint the woods you have on your walls... your woods as you would imagine they would feel with  _me_  in them, waiting? Waiting for you.”

 

Morse felt a twist somewhere low in his gut. The man had seen it, his painting— had perhaps even taken the time to have looked around his room, exploring every twist of leaf and turn of vine in his murals.

It was as if the man had looked into some corner of him that he wanted kept private, that he wanted to be seen only by those few with whom he wished to share it.  

 

“It's very interesting, your room,” the man said. “I'll get you more paint. You’ll need it for something of that scope. I’ve always hated that wallpaper, anyway.”

 

Morse's heart leapt: here, at last, was a tiny piece of information, a scrap of a lead, hidden there in the word “always.”

Wherever the hell he was, this man had some sort of long-term connection to the place.

 

And then his heart sank. If the man opened the door to come in, Morse would see him. And he wasn’t sure if he wanted to see the man. Not just yet. 

It was all a bit of a conundrum. 

If he saw the killer, the man would be all the less likely, he knew, to allow Morse a chance to escape; he’d be all the more careful of him. Possibly even change his mind about the painting and decide it would be more prudent to kill him on the spot, after all.

But if Morse got away _without_ having seen his captor, what useful information would he have, really, for Inspector Thursday? 

 

Morse pushed all such thoughts away; whatever happened, he would have little control as to how it played out. He would have to take the best chance he had, whenever it came.

 

Morse went to the wardrobe and rustled around, as if he was pulling out materials. “That's all you want, then? A landscape?”

“For now,” the man replied. “And then you can move up to painting me. But I’ll have to wait until I can trust you. Until you can see that we belong together.”

 

He said the words with an ugly caress in his voice, one that made Morse shudder. 

 

“Well, that will never happen,” Morse said. 

“Oh, no. Before, I’m through with you, you’ll never want to leave me.”

“I will,” Morse said. “I’ll get out. I’ll never stop trying to get out.” 

“I don’t think so,” the man said. “You might get out of this house, but you won’t get away from me.”

 

Suddenly, the impart of those words stuck Morse, and he turned and tore across the room to kick once more at the door.

“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare to harm the Thursdays!” Morse shouted. 

“The Thursdays? Oh, I won’t have to go to their house to find you again. You’ll be coming straight back to me.”

 

He was mad. The man was mad.

 

“If you don’t come of your own accord, they’ll be dragging you back to me. You’ll see,” he said.

 

Morse shook his head. The man was a liar, simply trying to twist his thoughts around. No one he knew would betray him like that. Not even Jakes hated him  _that_  much.  

 

Morse went over to the window and began prying at the pieces of wood. If he could only get three of the boards out, he’d be able to break the glass and have enough room to jimmy out to freedom.

It would not happen again. This lunatic thought he had it all figured out, but he was not one half as savvy as that man had been. 

 

That man had seemed so convincing at first, with his story that he was at a top-secret installation, that he was there to break codes. Morse had been on his way to report in for duty, after all. And he knew for years that that man was a maths professor—It made sense that he might be working for the government, for a Cold War incarnation of Bletchley Park.

He wove just enough of the plausible—the uniforms, the communiques—into his story as to keep Morse uncertain, to keep him believing that it might be true. 

 

But this man: Morse had the had the measure of this man well and clear. 

No, he wouldn’t let it happen again as it had happened before. 

 

Years ago, he had been adrift in the world, with no clear place to go, nothing much to fight for.

But now, he couldn’t imagine a world in which he never saw the Thursdays again. 

 

He pulled fiercely at the bottom corner of one of the planks, trying to loosen the heavy nails.

No.

He would never give up until he got out of this place.

 

 **********

Thursday came down the stairs as quietly as he could, careful of the third step from the top, the one that always squeaked a bit. If Morse was still asleep, so much the better.

He wasn’t up for it, for a battle with Morse over whether or not he should report in for duty.

Even putting the fact that Morse hadn’t been following Dr. DeBryn’s orders aside, Thursday felt he would like nothing better than to keep Morse clear of things—for Morse to simply stay put for once, to stay in the house and listen to his records— until there was a break in the case.

And break it they would. They would have to, one way or another, that’s all there was to it.

 

The image depicted in the last stolen painting—Burne-Jones’ ‘Angel 1881’— struck a little too close to home for comfort.

 

He went into the dining room to say goodbye to Win, and, as he had hoped, Morse’s spot in the corner was empty.

“Morse hasn’t shown himself, then?” Thursday asked.

“No, he’s still asleep. I thought it best. He looked exhausted last night,” Win said.

“Mmmmmm,” Thursday said.

 

Just then, the front bell rang, and Thursday half caught his breath, expecting Morse to come striding down the stairs in his blue uniform, cradling his helmet in the crook of his arm and looking for a fight.

But all upstairs remained silent.

The lad must truly be out for the count.

 

Win straightened his lapels, adjusting the way his jacket hung on his shoulders, and then brushed them off a bit.

“You’ll do, Fred,” she said, pecking him on the cheek. “Come home safe.”

 

He pocketed the sandwich she gave to him, kissed her once more, and then went out to the hall, picking up the yellow rose that Morse had left on the stand in the hall on his way out the door.

 

************

Mr. Bright was waiting in the main offices when he and Jakes came in. It was perhaps Thursday’s imagination, but it seemed that the Chief Superintendent’s  silver buttons shone all the brighter, that his movements were all the brisker and his posture all the straighter, as if he was preparing to square off against some unknown foe.

He was standing ramrod straight, his arms folded behind him, looking over the inner-office windows, contemplating the pieces of evidence that had been taped there, up against the glass.

 

“Ah. Thursday,” he said. “I need a word with you.”

“I was hoping to have a word with you, too, sir,” Thursday intoned.

 

Mr. Bright turned at once, extending his arm, gesturing to Thursday to proceed to his office.

 

Once he had settled behind his desk, Mr. Bright said, “We need answers, Thursday. We can't have this . . . this murderous lunatic with a penchant for Victorian art running amuck in Oxford.”

“No, sir.”

“I’ve asked our experts to come in later this morning. We’ll see if we can't brainstorm a bit, yes? See if there's some angle we’ve overlooked. In the meanwhile, we’ve had a call in. Apparent suicide over in Jericho. I want you and Jakes to go and take a look.”

Thursday raised his eyebrows. “A suicide, sir?”

“ _Apparent_  being the operative word, yes. We’re not taking anything at face value until this whole god-awful business is over.”

“Sir,” Thursday nodded. 

“Now, what was it you wanted to talk to me about, Inspector?”

“Well, sir. Morse had a bit of a dig-around around Trill Mill Stream yesterday, and he found flowers, washed up a ways from where we found Frida Yelland’s body.”

 “Morse? I thought that Dr. DeBryn had said twenty-four hours bedrest. What in heaven’s name was he doing over there?”

 

Thursday brushed over the question; it was clear that Mr. Bright thought Morse erratic enough as it was, if he was giving his file over to psychiatrists to read. There was no need to add to his perception of Morse as a loose cannon by going into details about yesterday’s little detour.

 

“The thing of it is, sir, the flowers look as if they came from a florist shop, rather than a garden. He and Fancy had the idea to take a look round the florist shops, see if anyone might remember anyone making such a purchase.”

“Still fixated on that painting, is he? That Ophelia portrait up at the Tate?” Mr. Bright began.

But then, something in his shoulders seemed to relax, so that he almost seemed to slump at his desk. “Very well,” he said. “That’s as good as anything else we have to be going on with. Carry on.”

“I told Morse to take another day off today. Thought he could do with an extra day. Looking a bit peaky last night, to be honest.”

“Well then,” Mr. Bright said. “Perhaps Trewlove can assist Fancy then, while Morse is out.”

“Sir.”

************ 

Thursday and Jakes walked along the gray and quiet side street toward the address Mr. Bright had given them, and, soon, they caught sight of Constable Strange, just ahead.

It would have been difficult, indeed, to have missed him, what his large frame planted halfway in the middle of the road as he stood, on his guard, beside a sedan with a tarp spread over it.  

“Constable,” Thursday said. 

“Sir,” he replied.

“This our man, then?” 

Strange nodded. “He’s a bit ...” he began, grimacing by way of a warning.

Then, he pulled the tarp back with a flourish, revealing a dead man lying spread-eagled on top of the car, his glazed blue eyes open wide to the sky, a thick trickle of blood running out from his nose.

 

“Name?” Thursday asked, curtly. 

“Oh, take your pick, Sir. He has about two dozen different business cards,” Strange replied.

 

Thursday raised his eyebrows. What was this? Was he some sort of confidence man?

Might have cause for suicide if whatever game he was playing had finally caught up with him.

 

“Witnesses?” Thursday asked. 

“The traffic warden was writing up a ticket when he hit, but nobody saw him jump. The porter says access to the roof is easy enough, if people are of a mind to go up there,” Strange said. “The sawbones is up there now, having a look-see.”

 

Thursday nodded. But just as Strange was moving to cover up the body, Thursday’s eyes locked fast onto one detail—there was a bit of string, there, tied around the man's finger. 

 

That didn’t suit.

It seemed to Thursday that a man who had something to remember would not have been in such an eager and painful hurry to forget. 

 ****************

On the rooftop, Dr. DeBryn was standing, writing in a notebook, a quiet figure amidst the gray and white cloud-colored spires and towers of the Oxford skyline. Off in the distance, a row of discordantly pink and blue pastel row houses marched out against the somber and neutral tones of the rest of the city. 

 

Difficult to believe that just an hour ago, this was the last view a man looked upon before he met his demise.

 

Did the man stop to take one last look around before he jumped? Or was this some sort of rendezvous point of a deal gone sour, a deal that ended with the unknown man being pushed from the ledge?

 

Thursday turned to DeBryn, who was still writing.

  
“Doctor. Any thoughts?” Thursday asked. 

 

“Not how I’d my own quietus make, but he wouldn’t have known much about it.”

The doctor looked up then, from his note-taking. 

“Instantaneous,” he said, simply. “Dead before his mind had a chance to catch up with the rest of him.”

 

Thursday stooped then, to pick up a pair of glasses left tossed aside on the building's barren roof.

“What do you make of the these?”

DeBryn regarded them for a moment, and then shrugged. “Commonly removed in suicides. Automatic gesture. And of course, the added benefit in this instance, is that he wouldn’t have seen what was coming towards him.”

 

It was almost imperceptible, but Thursday was sure he saw Jakes shudder.

 

But then, Jakes was a man who always wanted to see just what was coming. 

 

“Cause?” Thursday asked.

“Multiple catastrophic injuries. Chapter and verse once I’ve had a rummage. Shall we say three o’clock?”

******

Thursday and Jakes went down the flight of metal stairs, step in step, their footfalls causing a rattle and racket that echoed down the alley.

Sergeant Jakes pulled a cigarette out from his coat before they ever reached the ground, and Thursday could feel him radiating with that nervous sort of energy he had, that edginess that seemed always percolating just under the surface.

 

He knew that Jakes was pondering the same questions that he was: Was this a suicide?

Or was it murder?

And if it was murder, was this case related to the others?

 

As soon as they reached the sidewalk, before he and Jakes could even begin to speak their thoughts, Thursday heard a vaguely familiar voice hail him.

 

“Inspector?”

Thursday looked up at once. It was Joss Bixby, the art historian, striding along in a well-cut, black coat. 

“Mr. Bright called this morning. Filled me in on the case. Those stolen paintings—‘A Child’s World’ and ‘Angel 1881.’ Said you all might be in need a hand,” he said. “I must say, I was surprised to hear from him. You seemed to have your own resident expert, after all.”

 

Bixby shot a quick glance over Thursday’s shoulder; the man was subtle, but Thursday was long accustomed to picking up on gestures like that. Bixby was clearly looking for someone else.

 

“I thought perhaps . . . that rather antagonistic constable.... Morse, was it? I thought he might be here,” Bixby said. 

“He’s off duty for the day. I told him to take another day off, to recover, after the incident at Christ Church.” Thursday said. 

“Ah,” Bixby said. And then, he added, “He’s all right, isn’t he? Mr. Bright said he’d be back today.”

“Yes,” Thursday said. “Just thought he could do with an extra day.”

 

For just a moment, Bixby’s dark eyes seemed to rake over him, as if considering something.

The man was supposed to be an expert in Pre-Raphaelite Art—if Mr. Bright had told him of the two latest paintings stolen, perhaps he, too, thought that the last one taken bore a resemblance to Morse—and that Thursday was working to keep Morse clear of the whole affair for the time being. 

 

“Do you know Morse?” Thursday asked, thinking to sound him out on the topic. “You seemed to know his name, at the last meeting.”

“Oh?” Bixby replied. “Morse? Well, yes. I had just met him that morning, on the stairs.”

“Hmmmmm,” Thursday began, but Jakes, rather uncharacteristically, cut across him.

 “So what about our man here?  Our so-called suicide?” he said. “Could he be our ‘Angel, 1881?’" Someone decide to .... what? Send him flying?”

 

The three came to a stop on the sidewalk, where Strange stood beside the body, waiting for the coroner’s men.

Thursday nodded to Strange, who pulled the tarp back once more.

He had expected for Bixby to flinch—what with him being an academic and ostensibly unaccustomed to the sight of corpses—but the man seemed unfazed by the sight.

“He certainly doesn’t look like any sort model the Pre-Raphaelites would have favored for an angel, no,” Bixby said.

 

They all looked for a moment at the man, a perfectly prosaic middle-aged man with short, dark hair—he looked more like a solicitor or a dentist or a shopkeeper than a heavenly, wavy-haired flageolet player with folded charcoal wings.

 

“Yeah. Well. Hurling himself . . . or being hurled off a building hasn’t helped his looks any,” Jakes conceded. "So? Maybe Icarus? Any paintings with him from that period?”

  

Bixby, though, was frowning, staring at a point on the ground. Then, he stooped and picked up something—a small black notebook—that had fallen along the curb.

“I don’t think he was a suicide,” he mused.  

 

He flipped the notebook over and held an open page up to them. On it, three things were written in block print.  _Friday. 141066. Doomsday._

 

“It seems odd a man should kill himself when he had plans for a Friday sometime next October,” Bixby said.

 

Bixby turned to Strange then, and handed him the notebook. 

“You had better keep an eye on that, old man,” he said smartly. 

 

Strange, flustered at having missed such a piece of evidence, hastily pushed it into his coat pocket, to be cataloged with the rest. 

 

***********

It was like a dream come true.

It was like a nightmare. 

Never had Fancy thought he would be out on an inquiry with WPC Trewlove. Never had he thought to have such an ironclad excuse to talk with her.

If only he had known then what he knew now, he never would have tried out all of those swarmy lines. He could have started this day out fresh, instead of already deep in a hole, one dug by his own devising. 

 

But how could he have known? The girls in school always seemed to get a kick out of his jokes; they would go off, giggling with their friends, faces hidden behind their notebooks, turning around to smile at him after they had passed. 

 

But Trewlove, was a WPC, not a schoolgirl, and she made it clear she had heard enough of such delightful idiocies in her day. She was a serious person, embarking on a serious career. 

 

And so now, Fancy was starting out down in the negative digits, deep into the red.

 

Because, the truth was, Fancy was not a serious person. And he was beginning to think that even thirty years of coppering might not change that.

It was wired within him, a sense of fun, of mischief. And who knew? Perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing; it might just be his salvation.

It might just stop him from becoming Morse.

The way Morse behaved sometimes, it was easy to believe that, in thirty years’ time, he’d be a cantankerous old sod with a liver functioning at only twenty percent efficiency. The man brooded over everything. He thought too much.

Once, when Morse had rolled his eyes in melodramatic despair, simply because Fancy had misfiled a bit of paperwork, Fancy had said, “Don’t give your life a bitter taste just for the hell of it, yeah, Morse?”

And Morse had blinked at him as if he could hardly believe that such as he would dare to address his august person.

 

Fancy couldn’t really hide it, who he was.

 

But he couldn’t simply relax and be himself, either.

 

Because what was the etiquette for a day like today, out on an inquiry with a WPC?

 

When he was with Morse, it was always Fancy who was the one to suggest they stop for lunch. They’d get a pint somewhere and Morse would split his sandwich with him.

Fancy hadn’t a lot of money, what with sharing a flat with three blokes who never seemed to cough up their share of the rent. A simple and homey sandwich prepared by an actual mum in an actual kitchen tasted so much better, rested so much more easily in his stomach than the fry-ups he and his flatmates attempted to cook on a hotplate, or the endless Chinese takeout and fish and chips. 

It was all so simple, with Morse. 

 

But if he asked  _Trewlove_  about stopping for lunch, would she see that as him asking her for . . . a lunch date?

If they  _did_  stop for lunch, wouldn’t it be courteous for him to pay?

Or, if he  _did_  pay, would she be offended by  _that_? Think he wasn’t treating her equally?

 

With Morse, they tended to cover for one another, going round robin about getting the pints; there didn’t have to be all of this.... this hidden  _meaning_  written into it.

Oh, god—and the pints.

 

Say that they  _did_  stop for lunch, and he ordered a pint. Would she think that he drank too much, would she think those rumors about he and Morse getting blitzed out at Chipperdale Studios were true?

If he  _didn’t_  get a pint, would she think he was some namby-pamby teetotaler?

Maybe he should wait to see what  _she_  ordered, and then just order the same. And . . . . 

 

Oh, what was the point?

Morse was right.

She was out of his league.

 

It wasn't as if you could blame a chap for trying. There are some girls, after all, who are out of your league, but may not know it.

Trewlove, unfortunately, wasn’t one of them.

 

“Fancy?” Trewlove asked.

“Wha…?” Fancy replied.

She was watching his face with interest, smiling her Mona Lisa smile.

“I  _said_ , do you want to try this place on Carfax and then stop for lunch?”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, sure,” Fancy answered.

 

 ******

Miranda’s Gifts and Flowers looked as if the Valentine’s Day had gone inside its wide glass doors and exploded. The entirety of the store was violently pink, sashayed with gossamer and a-sparkle with white sunlight that shone through the store’s big front windows, falling upon teapots filled with tea roses and wind chimes and large silver buckets, tilted at alluring angles, filled with abundances of roses and wildflowers and baby’s breath.

A middle-aged woman in a bright floral dress, her platinum-blonde hair piled up into a beehive hairdo straight out of the last decade, bustled over to them. 

“May I help you, my dears?” she asked. 

“Yes,” Trewlove said. “We’re here to ask whether or not you might have had a customer in the last week or so who might have ordered an unusual number of flowers. Roses, chiefly—in yellow, red and pink. Like this one here.....”

 

Fancy—as if on cue—unfolded his palm to display the single yellow rose. 

 

“....And also, some poppies and lavender,” Trewlove added. 

“Oh, yes. I did. A middle-aged gentleman. Twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, it was, and he was making quite the to-do, it seemed. I helped him for quite a while.”

“What did he look like, do remember his name?” Trewlove asked. 

“He was a nondescript sort of fellow. He had a beard. Rather thick glasses, poor thing. He said his name was Mr. Miller. I remember, because that’s my brother-in-law’s name. Miller.”

“Did he write a cheque?” Trewlove asked.

“No,” she said. “No. He paid in cash. I don’t take cheques past a certain amount. Been burned too many times, my dears. Lovelorn people can be desperate people, you know.”

“I see. If you were to see his photograph, do you think you would recognize him?" 

“Yes, certainly. As I said, he was here quite a while, making his selection.” She stopped then, regarding them seriously. “He isn't in any trouble, is he? He seemed a very quiet sort of fellow.”

“No, ma’am. We're simply making inquiries,” Trewlove said. 

“Oh, that's fine, then. He seemed a bit of a romantic. It would be awfully disappointing to find out he was some sort of criminal. But then, that’s men, all over for you, isn’t it, my dear? Thoroughly disappointing, the lot of them. Although your young man here looks like a likely lad.”

“He’s . . . he’s not my young man,” Trewlove said. “He’s simply my colleague.”

“Oh, that’s too bad, then. He looks a thoroughly trustworthy sort. Not too dashing, but believe me, those types are far more trouble than they’re worth.”

 

Fancy felt himself going as red as the geraniums planted in little silver watering cans.

 

It seemed as if they ought to ask more questions, but Fancy’s brain somehow seemed to grind to a halt under the assault of feminine critique. 

 

Miller.

It wasn’t much to go on.  

 

******************

“It can’t be,” Dr. Cronyn muttered. 

 

Thursday turned to him, his dark eyes sharp.

 

“What can’t be?” Fancy asked. He was still holding the flower in his hand, the one that Morse had drug home from his trek through the underground stream. 

 

 

Thursday stood, arms folded, in the center of the main offices of the CID. They were all assembled—Thursday, Mr. Bright, Jakes and Strange, Trewlove and Fancy, along with their two consultants, Dr. Cronyn and Joss Bixby—before the glass windows taped up with the documents that created a grisly and erratic synopsis of the case. 

Dr. Cronyn frowned, looking pained.

“There was a patient. I met him in the early ‘50s. When I was working at Bellevue Sanatorium. Under Dr. Elias. He would have been about twenty then.”

“Who would?” Thursday prompted.

“A young man called Miller. Keith Miller.” 

“Who was he? This Miller?” Thursday asked.

“He was some sort of musical child prodigy. Quite brilliant by all accounts. But on the morning of his fifteenth birthday, he took an axe from the woodshed and buried it in the back of his mother’s skull.”

 

For a moment, a ringing silence fell upon the place.

“What happened to him?” Fancy asked, at last. 

“He was ruled guilty, but insane. He was sentenced to be detained at his majesty’s pleasure.”

“Where is he now?” Thursday asked, sharply. 

“I seem to remember a colleague saying he’d been released, cured, about five or six years ago. The point is, he was an Oxford boy.” 

 

They all looked at one another. 

It was a long shot—Miller wasn’t the most unusual surname in the world. 

But . . . could it be the same psychopath had returned to Oxford? It seemed more plausible than the idea that there might be two madmen by the same surname in so small a city. 

 

“Right,” Thursday said. “Let’s look into this Keith Miller angle then. I want to know when he was released, last known address, anything you can find.”

He turned then to Bixby and Cronyn. 

“I’ll trust you will be available, should the need arise?”

“Of course, Inspector,” Bixby said. 

“I'm off to Peterborough today, I’m afraid. Visiting my mother. I try to check in with her once a week or so. Not as well as she used to be. But I’ll leave my number where I can be reached there. Call anytime. And it’s only a few hours’ drive, if I’m needed here,” Dr. Cronyn said. 

“Very well. Thank you, gentlemen.”

 

Meanwhile, Constable Tyler had come in through the main door and was waving his arms as if trying to guide down a small aircraft. 

“Yes, Constable?” Thursday asked.

“I've got Mrs. Thursday on the blower. She says it's important,” he said.

 

That gave Thursday pause. Win rarely called when he was at work. 

 

“I'll take the call in my office. Thank you, Constable,” he said. “Gentlemen,” he added with a final nod toward Bixby and Cronyn. 

*****

“Win?” Thursday asked, as soon as he picked up the receiver. “Everything all right?”

“Oh, Fred,” she replied. “Morse is gone.”

Fred sighed in exasperation. “What? Where is he off to now?”

“No, he didn't go anywhere. He was never here.”

“What's this?” Thursday asked, sharply.

“He was sleeping so late, I went to check on him. But his window is open. And he’s gone. The hedgerow outside is smashed. . . it looks like ... it looks like someone drug him right out the window.”

Thursday stood for a moment, holding the receiver to his ear, stunned.

He should have known. He should have thought it odd that Morse should suddenly be so tractable. He should have checked.

“Fred?”

“I’ll be right there, love,” Fred said. 

************* 

As soon as they went into Morse’s room, Jakes’ eyes went wide with surprise.

“What the . . . . ?” he began wonderingly, his deep-set eyes losing their sense of caution for once, as they trailed over the scenes painted on the walls.

Thursday, however, had no time to explain; his eyes fell immediately on an unfamiliar-looking handkerchief, lying on the floor. He picked it up and sniffed at it, gingerly.

Chloroform.

The bastard had left it on purpose. It was as if he wanted Thursday to know.

 

Damn it. Right in his house. His  _house_. The man had dared to come and take Morse right out of his very _house,_ the very place he had always worked to keep as his family’s safe haven.

Thursday felt his hands at his sides clench into fists.

The bastard would pay for this.

 

Thursday tried to consider what he should do next, what should be his next move, but all he could think about was that damned Savoy truffle. How the last thing he had ever said to Morse had made it to sound as if Thursday begrudged him one bit of candy out of a box of thirty pieces. It was probably the first time Morse had ever helped himself to anything beyond a glass or water or cup of tea, and Thursday had to give him hell about it.

 

He would have punched a hole right in the wall, if it wouldn’t have damaged Morse’s painting.

Morse would certainly be as cross as two sticks if he did that, when he came home.

Because Thursday was certain of one thing.

Morse would not be another Mickey Carter.

Morse was coming home.  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this chapter isn't too disappointing, since Morse is not free yet--but at least Morse is not taking it this time around! :0) 
> 
> Here are a few links, by the way, to some of the paintings mentioned in this fic, in case any one is curious! 
> 
> "Angel 1881" Click [here](https://www.wikiart.org/en/edward-burne-jones/angel)
> 
> "A Child's World"/"Bubbles" Click [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubbles_\(painting\))
> 
> "Ophelia" Click [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophelia_%28painting%29)
> 
> "Ferdinand Lured By Ariel" Click [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Lured_by_Ariel)
> 
> "The Blessed Damozel" Click [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blessed_Damozel)
> 
> And a runner-up that I almost used for Morse
> 
> From "Days of Creation" Click [here](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BURNE-Jones,_Edward_Days_of_Creation_\(First\)_1870-1876.jpg)  
> I also posted the two for Morse, Angel 1881 and the runner-up that I almost used, on tumblr at astridcontramundum.....
> 
> Thanks for reading. :D


	9. Chapter 9

Thursday sat at the dining room table, choking down a piece of toast as dry as sandpaper, contemplating the stretch of wallpaper above the chair opposite him.

The white stripes lined with their trios of gold flowers seemed charged somehow, glaring with the empty space where Morse should have been. 

 

Sam and Joan were quietly working their way through their eggs, neither with much to say. The bickering that they typically carried on with, half of which, of late, had been for Morse’s sake—their cheerful attempts to draw him out of his shell—had been replaced with silence. 

 

He had been good for them, Morse. Thursday had always been proud of his children—from the time they were small, he felt they were two of the best people he had ever happened to meet—the fact that he was lucky enough to be their father being simply an added benefit.

But he didn’t think he had ever been prouder of them than he had been just a few weeks ago, when, late one night, he told them the truth of Morse's past. 

 

They listened, solemnly, and for once even Sam didn’t find an occasion for one of his jokes. 

“Morse doesn’t want to talk about it much,” Thursday had concluded. “He just didn’t want me to have to cover for him, for us to have a nest of half-truths between us. Best to follow his lead about it, yeah?” 

The nodded as if they understood, but said nothing, clearly a bit stunned.

Thursday had feared they might begin walking on pins and needles around Morse, but no—the next morning they were all assembled, sitting around the breakfast table, laughing and playing the clowns for Morse’s benefit, just as if nothing had changed between them.

 

Morse had brought out the best in them—Win’s generosity of spirit, Joan’s social acumen and savvy, Sam’s good-natured sense of fun, and his own idealism, something he thought he had lost, put down somewhere in the North African desert, years ago.

 

Thursday set the dried crust of toast aside, tried to soothe his scratched throat with a gulp of tea.

 

“I miss him too, love,” Win said, gently.

 

Thursday said nothing. He lowered his cup into its saucer and pushed himself back from the table. This was no time for sentimentality. 

He said a quiet goodbye to Win and walked out the door, just as if it were an ordinary day, just an ordinary case, just as if two constables weren’t in the den, operating a phone tap, in case either the killer or Morse happened to call.

He couldn’t look at it any other way.

Thursday had a case to crack. 

********

“It’s a dead end,” Jakes said, standing before his desk. “I’ve called everywhere. Evidently, there was a fire at the Bellevue Sanatorium, back in ’59. All the records were destroyed. I can’t find mention of a Keith Miller involved in a murder anywhere.”

 

Thursday felt his stomach churn. They had looked everywhere for Morse over the last few days, plowing through any building or house in Oxford that might have any connection to the Pre-Raphaelites. The had combed the basement of the Ashmolean, where a large collection of Pre-Raphaelite art hung on display, the basements of the Oxford Union Library, which featured murals painted by Rossetti and Morris, and Shotover Park, where Millais had painted “Ferdinand Lured by Ariel,” and where they had found Perez-Lopez’s body—and, each time, they had come away with nothing. Not so much as a button.

 

Now, it was looking more and more as if this Keith Miller lead was drying up as well.

 

It was Morse who had found those flowers, Morse who had started Trewlove and Fancy on what looked at last to be a likely track.

A track, that—Morse couldn’t have known then—might possibly solve the case of his own abduction.

 

And now they were dropping the ball.

 

“How is that possible?” Thursday asked, heavily. “It can’t be as if the man never existed. Let’s go back. School records, birth records, anything that might give us a hint of a last known address.”

“Sir,” Jakes said, with a nod.

He looked up sharply, then, as a knock sounded on Thursday’s office door.

 

“Yes?” Thursday called.

The door opened at once to reveal PC Fancy, his thin face looking resolute.

He came into the room and stood beside Jakes, pulling himself up to his full height before Thursday’s desk.

“I want to help with the case,” he said, without any preamble.

 

Jakes made a disparaging sound, but Fancy remained undaunted.

 

"I know I’m not a detective. But if I’m on foot patrol anyway, why shouldn’t I go door to door? I might turn up  _something.”_

 

The stress on the word _something_ seemed a bit of a kick in the drawers, but, truth be told, the boy was right.  

 

“After all, this bloke must live _somewhere_ ,” Fancy said.

Jakes rolled his eyes. “Like he’d use his real name, if the police came knocking?” 

“Maybe he would. He used it at the flower shop. It’s like Morse said, isn’t it? He’s taunting us. And if I can’t find anyone who knows anything of this Miller, or has seen anything of Morse, what about this unknown, this apparent suicide? It’s possible I might dig out something about _him._ I could go about with a post-mortem photograph.”

 

He stood, then, as though awaiting Thursday’s judgement.

 

“I . . . I just I feel that I ought to do _something._ Morse said that he trusted me.  And . . . not too many people do, here, to be honest. I feel like I owe him.”

 

Fancy delivered this little speech so earnestly, that it seemed unkind to point out that Morse had most likely said such a thing out of pure stroppiness, as a retort to him, to Thursday, when Morse had been annoyed with Thursday for raking them over the coals down at the pub.

 

_“Looks like it slipped his mind,” Thursday surmised. “And since when do you trust Fancy to do anything? I thought you were the brains behind this operation.”_

_Morse regarded him warily, as one might an angry dog._

_“Fancy is my partner,” he said, slowly. “Of course, I have to trust him. Don’t I?”_

 

“All right, Fancy,” Thursday sighed. “I’ll tell Sergeant Higgins to free WPC Trewlove up, so she can go along. Might be a lot of housewives at home during the day. They might be inclined to talk more freely with her than with you.”

Fancy swallowed.

“Sir,” he said.

 

Now what do you make of that? The boy seemed more frightened at the idea of working with Trewlove than he did of summoning the courage to come in and deliver that little plea to the DI.

 

Odd, that. He could have sworn Morse had said that Fancy was carrying a bit of a torch for the WPC. Who could figure?

 

As he picked up his pipe, preparing to go once more through the files, hunting for some detail he might have missed, he could almost hear Morse’s voice, with a hint of a smirk, in answer to his question.

 _Well, that’s just it._ _Isn’t it, sir?”_

 

 ******** 

 

Thursday, Jakes and Strange stood side by side in the dim and chilled mortuary, as Dr. DeBryn delivered his findings on Frida Yelland and the unknown.

Frida, it transpired, had died of a fractured skull, from a blow to the parietal lobe delivered mere hours before her body was found in Trill Mill Stream by the workers of a pest control company hired by Beaufort College.

 

And the unknown, it transpired, had died of a fractured everything.

 

“As I thought, it’s a bit of a salmagundi,” the doctor said. “It’s very difficult to say which injury _precisely_ ended his life—it was more of a coalition. A confederacy of catastrophe, if you will.”

“But he wasn’t dead before he hit the car, was he? He wasn’t killed somewhere else and then the murderer perhaps pitched the body over the edge of the building to cover it up?” Thursday asked.

“No,” DeBryn said. “No. The flow of blood would suggest otherwise. Other than a damaged liver, he was hale and hearty before he hit the top of that sedan.” He paused, seeming to bounce a bit as he sighed. “And then it was good night, Irene.”

“Hmmmm,” Thursday said.

He wandered over to the table where the man’s effects lay—a wristwatch, a wallet full of fake business cards and . . . .

 

“Where’s that notebook?” Thursday asked, sharply.

“Sir?” Jakes asked.

“The little black notebook that that art historian, Bixby, found, the one he passed off to Strange. It’s missing.”

He turned, then, to Strange.

“Constable?” Thursday asked. “Where’s that notebook?”

 

Strange, in the meanwhile, was looking aghast.  “I don’t know, sir. I had it right in my jacket pocket. I must have dropped it.”

Thursday struggled to retain his composure, but felt his blood pressure rise, nonetheless.

“Well, you better retrace your steps, Constable, and find the ruddy thing,” he snapped.

“Sir,” Strange said.

 

What was it that was written in that notebook? _Friday. 141066. Doomsday._

Thursday hadn’t the slightest idea what to make of it.

 

Morse, he knew, would have had a thousand ideas. The number was a date, it was the number of notes in Mozart’s Concerto in A Minor, it was the number of lines in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, or the number of molecules in an ounce of water.

Something.

 

Ah, lad, Thursday thought.

It would be so much easier to find you if we had you to help us.

 

He was a poor police officer, Morse. But he'd make for a fine detective someday. 

 

******

Joss Bixby sat behind a large maple desk, the rich wood surface of it polished so that it shone like water in the falling afternoon light, flipping through a small black notebook.

_Friday. 141066. Doomsday._

 

_Doomsday._

 

The word made him think at once of Clive Durrell.

The man didn’t care if all the world went to hell in a handbasket, blew all the way to Kingdom Come—the maths don had been a megalomaniac, hatching plans to relocate to the South Pacific, planning to form his own society.

But Durrell was dead, shot by the KGB after he had betrayed the Soviets.

 

Bixby sat back in his chair and lifted his arms, resting his hands on top of his head.

Thoughts of Durrell and his schemes brought to mind at once the memory of an evening last summer, when he and Morse had burned the papers detailing the plans that Durrell had been working on over the years, the ones he had planned to sell to the highest bidder.

 

_“What was he planning. That man?” Morse asked. “Do you know? If he began all these projects at the behest of the Soviets, what made him change his mind? What made him begin selling documents to Fenix?_

_“Yes,” Bixby said, “We have some idea. That’s what put him back on the radar, actually. Real estate negotiations of all things. He was trying to buy an island.”_

_“Buy an island?” Morse asked, incredulously._

_“It’s not as preposterous as it sounds. Quite a few wealthy people own private islands. Marlon Brando is putting in an offer on one in the South Pacific this month.”_

_“Who’s Marlon Brando?” Morse asked._

_“He’s quite a well-known actor. To most people. People who go to the movies. But that wasn’t the pertinent part of that sentence.”_

_Morse looked at him in confusion, and then Bixby could see it, the moment the realization dawned._

 

_The South Pacific._

_One of the few places where one might hope to survive an all-out thermonuclear war._

 

_“He and his followers stopped working for the Soviets and started working only for themselves,” Bixby said. “They seemed keen to set up their own society. To set up their own little world. They didn’t care how this one ended. They didn’t care who got ahold of those papers. Let the ignorant masses kill one another. The chosen ones would remain.”_

 

Bixby scowled, lost in thought. Durrell’s followers had been killed, though, along with him. Did any ‘chosen ones,’ in fact, survive? Could it be possible that, despite the mass-shooting at Lonsdale last June, that some members of the cell were still at large?

It seemed unlikely.

He slid the top drawer of the desk open and pulled out a calendar, thumbing through it.

And then his heart sank.

The fourteenth of October, 1966 was, indeed, a Friday.

Was some catastrophic event planned for that day? Doomsday?

 

Bixby wasn’t sure what to make of it.

But one thing was for certain.

They had all better figure out what, exactly, was happening, and figure it out quick.

Because now it was possible that the fate of the free world depended on it.

 

Agent X, later known as Endeavour Morse, was supposed to fade away into the comfortable obscurity of working-class life. He had become, of all things, a police officer, but his temperament guaranteed that he would never rise so high in the ranks as to be involved in the higher echelons of administration.  He’d marry, buy a row house in a quiet neighborhood, have children, fret over his mortgage payments, take the car into the shop, sing with his choir, attend conferences with his children’s teachers, run errands with the missus on Saturday mornings and . . .

And that would be that.  

He wasn’t supposed to be kidnapped within his first two months on the job.

 

It wasn’t Agent X’s fault that he was a walking, talking, breathing instruction manual for designing some of the deadliest technology known to man.

But he was, all the same. 

And now that instruction manual had gone missing, had fallen into the hands of god-only-knew who.

 

The chatter was rarely completely false. When his best informant had told Bixby that there was buzz that a new cell had sprung up in Oxford in place of the old one, he could quite believe it.

 

Nature abhors a vacuum.

 

Bixby had been so sure that the art thefts might have something to do with it; it was certainly a way to lay hands on quick cash, selling works of art on the black market.

But after a preliminary investigation, it seemed that it was a case, after all, for the police, the work of an utter madman. Members of a communist cell might steal and sell works of art, but why would they kill two working-class girls and a bohemian painter, all in such an odd fashion?

Although, it was true, that the last few events in the madman’s deranged crime spree seemed to fall out of the pattern. 

Could there be two cases, here, two crime sprees, one happening concurrently with the other? Obscuring one another? Obscuring the truth?

Bixby shuffled about the papers on his desk, shifting them about like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

 

First, he placed a photograph of Alice Heverstone beside a photocopy of the Blessed Damozel, and both the actual girl and the girl in the painting looked up at him with serious eyes, their oval faces framed by waves of heavy dark hair. Alice was found with seven star-shaped barrettes in her hair, holding three lilies. There was a definite connection.

Likewise, the photograph of Frederico Perez-Lopez was the spirit and image of the painting of Shakespeare’s Ferdinand—the longish brown hair, the trim, slightly pointed beard. And the odd costume that the body was found in seemed to remove all doubt.

The boy portrayed in “A Child’s World,” John Everett Millais’ grandson, William Milbourne James, resembled James Mills in both looks and in name, but, thankfully, the child was found at Christ Church Cathedral, left unharmed.

 Was it that the killer had already moved on to his next victim, Morse? Was he using the child as a way to slowly reel the constable in?

He laid the photograph of the last stolen painting down, then, “Angel 1881.” The figure in the painting did bear a stylized resemblance to Morse—the wavy tawny hair, the blue eyes, the austere profile—and then there was the nod to a musical reference as well, the gold flageolet, echoing _The Oxford Mail’_ s praise of the constable’s “golden pipes.”

 

That left only Frida.

 

Why was there not a painting for her? She was lying, face up, in a stream, at one point strewn with flowers. And yet no other paintings had been reported missing, let alone Millais’ iconic “Ophelia,” which was housed safely at the Tate Gallery in London.

Frida seemed to break the pattern.

 

Perhaps a visit out to Wantage was in order.

**************

 

“Do you ever think it odd? Those rumors? About you and Morse getting blitzed at Chipperfield Studios?” Trewlove asked, as she and Fancy headed down an orderly street lined with row houses and decorative shrubbery, ringing bell after bell.

“No, not really. People will talk about something, I suppose. Why?”

Trewlove shrugged. “I don’t know. Just seems a lot of trouble to make you and Morse look a bit of a joke. I wondered, that’s all. Who would it benefit to so discredit you?”

Fancy laughed, ruefully. “I suppose that might be because we _are_ a bit of a joke. To most of the constabulary, anyway. I barely passed the law exam, to be honest. I wouldn’t be here at all if Morse hadn’t helped me through it. And Morse . . . well. Let’s just say there aren’t too many coppers downstairs who want to talk about Mozart and Wagner and Wittgenstein and Schopenhauer.”

“Gesundheit,” Trewlove said.

“But I didn’t snee ….” he began. But then, he caught himself.

Trewlove had let the word fall with such a deadpan delivery, that he almost missed it.

 

It was a joke, then.

 

Fancy smiled, and flipped his fringe from his eyes. 

 

They went up to the next door—a photograph of Morse and a post-mortem photograph of the unknown in hand—and rang the bell.

An older man wearing only a vest, with white hair spiraling like wild down on his beefy, bare shoulders, all but tore open the door.

 

“About time, you lot showed up. I’ve been calling for days,” he snapped.

“Sir?” Fancy asked.

“That ruddy car. It’s been parked in front of my house for days. I’ve been having to park all the way up at the bus stop and walk down the hill. You think that’s any pleasure, at my age?”

“No, sir.”

“I’ve been paying on this house, since before you were born. Think I should have the right to park in front of my own house, don’t I?”

“Yes, sir,” Fancy said. “We’ll see to it.”

 

The man slammed the door, then, with an enormous swoosh of air, one that nearly knocked Fancy’s helmet from off his head.

Trewlove looked at him. “Something suspicious about this car, do you think?” she asked. 

“One way to find out, I suppose,” Fancy replied.

 

They went down the steps of the row house, step in step, and walked over to the abandoned car, a light blue Lincoln Continental. They tried the doors, but all four were locked fast.

Fancy gave one final, futile pull on the passenger’s side door handle, and then looked up to Trewlove.

“Do you think I might . . . uh. . . borrow a hairpin?” he asked.

Trewlove frowned. “A _what?"_

“A hairpin. Actually at least two. So I can jimmy the lock.”

“Can you do that?”

 

Fancy shrugged.

 

Trewlove reached up and removed two pins from her hair, allowing one wisp of a yellow blonde tendril to fly free from under her cap, and handed them to him.

He took them carefully and inserted them into the lock, working at the mechanism, twisting the pins until he heard a definite pop.

 

“Goodness,” Trewlove said. “I’m not sure if I should be shocked or impressed.”

Fancy shrugged again, feeling a hint of color rise into his face, and then ducked his head, sliding into the car’s passenger seat. He opened the glove compartment and began to rifle through it, searching for he wasn’t sure what, until he found a small, leather case and flipped it open.

“Look at this,” he said.

Trewlove dropped into the driver’s seat next to him, looking across his shoulder, as he displayed the open case. It was filled with false IDs and various business cards. Dentist. Pawn broker. Mechanic. You name it.

 

“I’d say this car belongs to our unknown,” Trewlove said.

Fancy reached into the glove compartment again, pulling out another leather folder and opening it. 

 

“The car is registered to a Mr. John Pettifer. Address in London,” Fancy said. “And look at this,” he added.

 

He handed Trewlove a small stack of business cards.

 

 _“John Pettifer. Private investigator. All inquiries discreet and confidential_ ,” she read.

“My god,” she breathed. “The man could have had dirt on everyone and anyone. There might be any number of people who wanted him dead." 

 

It was certainly suspicious as hell. Fancy felt a glow, deep in his chest. Who knew? This man might be just the key they were looking for.

 

He could see it now—Morse’s begrudgingly tolerant face—when he heard how it was he, Fancy, who cracked the case.

 

“Let’s go show this to Inspector Thursday,” he said.

 

 *****************

 

Morse lay on the bed, his eyes roving aimlessly over the swirls of the plaster Victorian ceiling rose that encircled the bronze light fixture hanging just above him.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed since he had lain there, too weak to do much else.

He could get water from the tap in the small bath, and, for a while, this had sustained him—and fueled his efforts to pull out the heavily-nailed planks from around the window.

But by the time he had freed the first board from the thick plaster, he was beginning to feel more and more faint, dizzy when he moved his head too quickly.

Through the strip of light that he had made in the window, he could see that it was day; and even the knowledge that, from here on out, he would at least be able to mark the passing of day and night, was a comfort.

 

But he had become accustomed to toast and marmalade and eggs and sausages in the mornings, to a fresh, homemade sandwich that he split with Fancy and a cold pint at lunch, to Mrs. Thursday’s cooking at tea—roasts and shepherd’s pies, smelling richly of gravy and steamy potatoes and . . .

And even to tea and biscuits afterwards, or of late, pieces of his chocolate birthday cake, thick with buttercream frosting.

From such an abundance—an abundance he had never really known before in his life—to mere tap water was too much, and his body and his mind seemed to be slowly shutting down in protest.

Soon, he felt he could do nothing but give in. To close his eyes and rest. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t get away. All he could do was wait. Wait and hope someone would find him.

 

This time.

 

Sometimes, he simply lay there, too tired to move. Sometimes, he slept, and, in his dreams, he was back at Bixby’s party, but he wasn’t looking at that false Pieter Claesz painting, or drinking rainbow-colored cocktails; instead, he was standing beside tables laden with silver trays of food: vegetables with hollandaise sauce and spiced baked hams and crab salad with curried cauliflower and mint, smoked salmon and caviar, avocado crème fraiche on chive blinis.... he could almost smell the savory and satisfying richness of it all.

 

He could _smell_ it.

 

Abruptly, Morse opened his eyes and sat up.

The smell of food was there, it was real, in the darkness, and, even though it was far too dark to see, he could just make it out, the outline of a man, standing at the foot of the bed.

Morse stared at the man, unsure if he was dreaming still.

He was a mere silhouette, as featureless in the pitch of night as if he were wearing some sort of Renaissance death mask.

Which, perhaps, he was.

 

“You’ve been quiet,” he said.

 

Morse felt his heart beating high in his throat. He was terrified the man might look behind the heavy drapes, might see that he had torn free one of the boards. He made his hands into fists, so that the man wouldn’t see how he had bloodied the ends of his fingers working on it, even though such a small detail must be impossible for him to notice, here in the heavy darkness.

But Morse felt, somehow, as if this man might know, as if he could look right through him, as if he understood everything about him. There was no corner in which to hide from the intensity of his gaze, a gaze he felt as palpably as a smothering cloth pressed over his face, blocking out all air, blocking out all light.

 

“You can talk to me, if you want,” the man said. “I’ve nothing against it. Just the opposite, in fact. You can always talk to me.”

 

Morse said nothing, his heart beating heavily. If this had happened days ago, he would have flown at the man; now all he could do was to sit there, still as a shadow.

 

“I would understand,” the man said. “You would see.”

 

And Morse wanted the man to stay, to save him from his isolation, from becoming what he had been before. And he wanted him to go, to go before he pulled back the drapes and saw what he had done to the window.

 

“Well, I suspect you’re hungry,” he said at last. “I brought some things for you.”

 

He set something down on the desk, so near, so near to the window, that Morse found he was holding his breath—so much so that he thought he might pass out from the strain of it.

There was the ring of china and the rustle of paper, and then the silhouette was moving, the man was leaving, shutting the door with a click and then bolting it with the clunk of a heavy lock.

 

Morse stood up and made his way over to the desk, snapping on the light switch as he did so.

And he felt his knees buckle. On the floor, were a grouping of paper grocery bags. But one the desk . . .  on the desk sat a plate heavy with roast herbed chicken and potatoes and potted shrimps and peas and carrots, just like he had been offered by Louis and Singleton.

For a moment, Morse could only stare at it.

He knew he shouldn’t eat it. It could be laced with anything. Anything at all. Hallucinogens or poison or sedatives.

But just the sheer smell of it seemed to short-circuit something in his brain; it would be a torture beyond endurance, to slowly starve while inhaling the fragrant steam of such a bounty.

He shoved one bite into his mouth. And then another.  He groaned out loud with relief and then he was inhaling the food until he was nearly gagging on it.

 

Then he stopped and knelt down, taking shallow breaths, resisting the urge to vomit.

He couldn’t afford to lose one bite—who knew how long this food would have to sustain him?

 

He leaned his head against the chair by the desk, resting it there until the feeling passed, and then he reached up, taking the plate down to the floor with him. He forced himself to slow down, then, as he ate, chewing methodically. He felt as if he was returning to himself with every bite, as if he had been hovering about, half exiting his body, and now he was inhabiting it fully again.

When Morse was finished, he left the plate on the floor and stood and crossed the room. Then he collapsed across the width of the bed and closed his eyes.

Soon, he was felt as if he was drifting off. He’d sleep awhile, just for a bit—and then he was sure that he would feel much better.

 ******

When Morse opened his eyes, he felt as if he could think clearly, as if his senses had sharpened as he dozed.

 

He rose, then, and went to look in the paper bags that the man had left, the ones Morse had neglected to check before, and found bread and cheese and apples and tins and a tin opener.

He could have wept at the sight, he was so grateful.

 

No.

No, he wasn’t.

 

He paused for a moment, and then, curious despite himself, he pawed through the other bags left around the desk. In them, he found stacks of paints in generous cans, as if purchased from a hardware store, and all sizes of brushes.

What could he do with this, to fill the dull and lonely hours?

He was much better off here, left alone in this large room with paints and food, than he was in that white cell, with that man standing behind him, his breath hot on his nape, and _aren’t you finished yet, Morse? What the hell have you been doing all day?_

 

Here, there were no skeletal sevens. Here, he was he free to do as he wanted.

 

He popped the first can open, a rich and dark green. And then he paused.

 

Wasn’t this just what the man wanted him to do? Paint something that would be redolent, somehow, of him?

 

Morse put the lid back down, tapping it so that it was sealed tight.

 

The man was mad. Morse wanted nothing to do with his deranged schemes for immortality. Alice Heverstone’s soul was her own. Frederico Perez-Lopez’s soul was his own.

And so was his.

 

He looked around the still and lonely room.

He had spent hour after hour, grinding and chipping away at the plaster, shaking the bottom board in an attempt to loosen the grip of the nails into the wall.

If he worked at that some more, kept at it, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to take a break, every now and then, and paint just for a bit, just for his sanity’s sake.

 

No.

No. He wouldn’t.

 

He walked over to the window and pulled back the drapes. Through the six-inch slot across the bottom of the window, he could see green meadows and hedgerows, the autumn sun falling gently over the landscape as light as love, as bright as a greeting from a jovial three.

 

It reminded him of another morning, last summer, when he had stood before a palace of a house, looking for Tony after Bixby's party.

 

_“It’s a bright enough morning. Why so glum?” Bixby asked. “Or do you always look this way, old man?”_

_“I just hoped, I suppose that I . . . that someone would have found me. That they just wouldn’t have left me locked in that bathroom,” Morse said._

_Bixby frowned. “Why should anyone have come and found you? It seems you’ve found yourself, well enough.”_

_“Yes,” Morse conceded. “I suppose.”_

_“You suppose?” Bixby said, a faint crease forming between his brows. “You’re standing here, aren’t you?”_

 

 **********

As soon as Thursday came up the stairs with Jakes, heading back to the offices of the CID, he saw him, sitting in one of the chairs lining the narrow hall.

 

Oh, hell.

 

It was Tony Donn, dressed in a trim, dark blue suit, his fine-featured face turning sharply at Thursday’s approach.

 

Thursday was thoroughly ambivalent about the man; the last thing Morse needed was more complications, more difficulties, more confusion in his life.

And Anthony Donn seemed to be a grand purveyor of all three.

Tony Donn was a nuisance to be sure . . .  but now, considering the circumstances, he supposed that they were allies.

Of sorts.

It would be wise to call a truce. Actually, now that he thought about it, if Morse got loose, might he try to call the man? His was a telephone number that Morse had known for far longer than the Thursdays' own; it might pop more quickly into Morse's mind if he was in a panic.  

Perhaps they should tap Anthony Donn’s phones, as well as their own, for good measure?

 

“May I talk to you? Privately?” Tony asked.

Thursday sighed. “Why not?” 

 

It wasn’t as if he had anything more pressing to do, unfortunately.

 

He led Tony Donn through the offices of the CID, catching out of the corner of his eye the way the man startled as he passed the inner-office windows, where a copy of Morse’s warrant card photo was now taped to the glass along with photos of the other victims. He pursed his mouth then, in a way that Thursday took to be a reprimand.

 

Once Thursday closed the door of his office behind them, the man started talking at once, and Thursday immediately felt his blood pressure rise.

Tony did always seem to like the sound of his own voice.

 

“I understand, you may not be exactly in my corner,” he said crisply, his accent posh and plummy. “But you might have told me, you know. I had to find out about all of this from the bloody _papers_. Is that fair, now, do you think?”

Tony shook his head scornfully, and, before Thursday even had the chance to reply, he was off again.

“Well. I suppose we should be glad it _made_ the papers. I guess it didn’t the last time around. Still, you can imagine, it certainly was a hell of a way to find out that Pagan’s missing—shake out the paper, and there he is on the front page.”

 

Thursday gritted his teeth. That ridiculous nickname. Pagan. God only knew that any such reference to classical civilization or Ancient Greece was the last thing Morse needed if he was going to continue working at the nick and talking about opera.

 

How could Morse stand the man, anyway?  He seemed to say five words for every one that Morse typically said.

 

“We’ve all been busy,” Thursday said.

 

Chasing one fruitless lead or another, he concluded, in his mind.

 

“Hmmm,” Tony said. “Have you considered that it might be more prudent to have this madman come to _us_?”

“How so?”

“I want to offer a ransom,” Tony said, simply.

Thursday grimaced. “I don’t think he’s after money." 

“Of course, he is,” Tony said. “What else do these people ever want? Even Clive Durrell wanted it, in the end.”

“It’s not that simple, I’m afraid.”

“Well, I can’t just sit here and do _nothing_ ,” Tony said.

“Yes. You’ll do precisely that,” Thursday replied. “You’ll let the police handle it.” 

“ _Handle it?_ If you’re handling it, then why do you have Pagan’s photograph already posted up there with all of those dead people then, do you want to answer me that?”

“We’re trying to define the pattern,” Thursday said.

“It’s clear what the pattern is,” Tony huffed. “Three people have turned up dead already. The man takes people and then he kills them. There’s your precious pattern.”

 

Just then, Fancy came bounding in the door, Trewlove, more circumspect, a half pace behind.

 

“Sir!  . . .” he began . . . and then he ground to a halt, looking between the two men, doubtless reading the tension there.

“One moment, Constable,” Thursday said. He turned then, to Tony.

“Look. If you want to be of use, then how do you feel about some constables coming out to Lake Silence, setting up a phone tap at your place?” Thursday asked.

“A phone tap?” Tony replied.

“It just occurred to me, if Morse gets free, and gets to a phone, he might try to call you. He’s known your number for years. Sometimes, when people are in a panic, it’s what’s ingrained that they remember.”

Tony frowned. Evidently, he had been prepared for an even greater battle; the idea that he might be permitted to do anything at all seemed to mollify him.

 

“Well. Yes. Yes, of course, Inspector. If you think it would be helpful.”

 

“Alright, then. Ask for Constable Strange, down in the main office. Tell him I sent you. He’ll see to it.”

 

The man seemed dumbfounded for a moment, and then nodded grimly before walking to the door, snapping it shut behind him. 

 

“Now. Fancy,” Thursday said. “What is it you wanted to say?”

“Sir. I think I have a lead on the unknown. His name is Pettifer. John Pettifer,” he said.

*****

Mr. Yelland led Bixby down the hall to a small but cheery yellow bedroom, one  with white curtains decorated with yellow roses and a four-poster bed, covered in a white chenille bedspread and hemmed with little white pompoms.

“You can look all you want,” Mr. Yelland said, his voice broken, heavy with sorrow. “Won’t make much difference now, I suspect.”

But then a light was there, the same spark that must have gotten the old man through the war.

“Just find who did it.”

Bixby nodded. “We will,” he said. “I can promise you that.”

 

The old man nodded sorrowfully, and then withdrew down the hall, as if he could not bear to look upon the stuffed panda and the heart-shaped box on the dresser, the hair ribbons and the dried corsage and the glass swan on the nightstand, the frocks hanging neatly in the wardrobe—ghosts of his lost daughter, one and all.

 

Bixby circled around the room, stopping at a small bookshelf, laden with books—old Enid Bltyon storybooks with spines decorated with fairies and brownies, thick paperback teen romances, with such titles as _True to You_ and _Then Came Septembe_ r, jammed alongside of copies of _Jane Eyre_ and _Emma_ and _Pride and Prejudice._

Then, Bixby noticed that, on the bottom shelf, one of the books was crammed in backwards, so that the spine was facing inwards. He crouched down and pulled the book out.

It was a paperback copy of Marx and Engles’ _The Communist Manifesto._

Bixby flipped through the book, his eyes scanning over underlined passages.

 

“ _These labourers, who must sell themselves piece-meal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.”_

 

_“Then the world will be for the common people, and the sounds of happiness will reach the deepest springs. Ah! Come! People of every land, how can you not be roused?”_

 

_“The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”_

 

Ah.

So beauty queen had another side to her, one that perhaps few had ever seen.

Or had bothered to look for. 

It was clever, he had to admit it. She would smile at car shows, try out for advertising spots, participating whole-heartedly in the culture of sell, sell, sell, seemingly swept away, part and parcel of the colors and flash and the glamour of the capitalist world.

And no one saw her true self: the factory worker who stood wrapping bread day after day, stomaching clumsy passes from the manager, swallowing down the insufferable condescension of the division head, a man who made twenty times her salary, resenting it all.

 

He looked again through some of the passages she had underlined, noted the books on her shelf. 

Frida was something that Bixby rarely ran across in his line of work. She was a true revolutionary. A romantic.

 

An idealist.

 

And, as such, she was likely to see that same idealism, that strain of honesty and earnestness in others, even when it wasn’t there. She was likely to trust where she shouldn’t.

Had she met up somehow, with someone she thought was sympathetic to the cause?  Procured information for someone who wanted it only for what he or she could sell it for?

Who then wanted her out of the way?

 

He flipped, then to the front of the book, and found several words written there, in small, neat handwriting. 

 

_98018 Domesday Tuesday 10_

 

Domesday? Was that some misspelling of Doomsday?

 

She wouldn’t be involved in anything like _that_ , surely. Not with all of her apparent buoyant optimism for some utopian future.

 

He looked again around the room—now, with a fresh understanding. She was just like him, wasn't she? Leading who knew how many different lives.

 

“What happened, Frida?” he said aloud, to the yellow room, one strewn everywhere with girlish chenille pompoms and sweetheart roses.

 

************

 

The offices of John Pettifer were dark with heavy wood furniture and heavier drapes, blocking out any hint of the sun.

The only splash of color, really, in the rooms, was a large portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, with bright red hair, a green striped dress and an enormous white lace ruff.

 

Thursday stood and considered it.

It was a portrait.

Which was what the case had been all about, after all.

 

Fancy seemed to be of a similar mind. He went to lift the picture from the wall, for a closer look.

“This isn’t by one of those Pre-Raphael . . . ” he began.

 

And then he stopped short.

 

Under the portrait was a small, green safe, a metal cube tucked neatly into the wall.

 

They looked at it for a moment, in silence. Whatever was in that safe, might be just what they needed.

 

But how to get at it?

 

Fancy tilted his head, then, flipping his fringe out of his eyes.

“Seems a bit out of place, doesn’t it? A portrait of Queen Elizabeth? If Morse were here, he’d say it was a clue as to the combination. That the combination was perhaps the year in which Queen Elizabeth bought her favorite handbag. Or some such thing.”

 

And that— surprised as Thursday was to admit it—actually made sense, didn’t it?

Pettifer had had a string tied around his finger. A poor memory perhaps?

 

“I don’t know about a handbag,” Trewlove said. “But the combination might be the years of her reign. Try 15 58 16 03. Or some variation thereof.”

“How did you know that?” Fancy asked.

“Well, she’s not the most obscure monarch, is she?” Trewlove countered. "Didn't you learn those dates in school?" 

“Yeah,” Fancy conceded, beginning to spin the dial. “Doesn’t mean I remember them, though.” 

 

He tested the handle, and damn it if the thing didn’t pop open.

 

Fancy pulled open the door then and gasped. The small safe was crammed—absolutely crammed—with papers and cheques and folders and photographs and who knew what all.

 

“What will we do with all of this?” Fancy asked.

“We take it all back with us, Constable,” Thursday said.

Fancy shrugged. 

“Pays to be thorough,” he agreed.

Thursday wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but the last word to fall from Fancy’s mouth seemed a bit rounded, rolling with an uncharacteristic trace of a northern accent, as if he was repeating verbatim what Morse had most likely told him, time and time again.

 

******** 

Thursday sat at his desk, under a circle of light cast by the green glass-shaded lamp. The CID was quiet at night, so quiet that Thursday could hear the rattle of his own breathing.

Was it that during the day the place was so full of activity—the crank of paper torn from a typewriter, the slamming of files, the harsh laughter and staccato chatter, the sharp metallic ring of a telephone—that the place, at night, seemed all the more silent?

 

He lay the pictures out again, one by one across his desk.

It all broke down with Frida Yelland, the pattern. A painting matching her description had not been stolen.

Or could it be, as Morse had said early on, that one _had_ been stolen, from storage, from a private collector—even a bit of William Morris wallpaper—and they had missed the clue? 

 

Pettifer—from the files Thursday had searched—seemed to specialize in divorce. Could Frida be a young girl someone was carrying on with? Had the man killed her and Pettifer, the private investigator, so that the wife wouldn’t get wind of it?

Thursday rubbed his chin, considering.

 

There was a noise, then, outside of his office, as if the main door into the CID had been pulled slowly open.

Thursday went still.

The killer knew Morse was a copper. Could he be coming in here, in the dead of night, looking to go through his desk, his file?

 

Slowly, Thursday crept to the door and reached his hand up to the wall just outside of his office, to where he knew there was a light switch. With one brush of his hand, he flipped it, flooding the offices with light.

Sergeant Jakes, who was just slouching off his coat, jumped and spun around, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw Thursday, standing there.

 “Christ,” Jakes blurted. “Christ, but you gave me a turn.”

“What are you doing here, Sergeant?” Thursday asked.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he said, tersely. 

 

Thursday nodded. Head too full of the case, most likely.

 

“Come on, then,” Thursday said. “You can help me sort Pettifer’s files.”

******

They sat in Thursday’s office, going through the stack of papers in companionable silence, Thursday noting how the sergeant’s deep-set eyes and sharp cheek bones seemed all the gaunter, thrown into sharp relief in the half-light.

It was just reaching dawn—the light in the window slowly turning from pitch to indigo, Jakes standing to begin brewing a third round of coffee, when the telephone rang.

 

Thursday picked it up.

 

“Thursday,” he intoned.

“Inspector Thursday?” a man said.

Thursday was so tired that it took him a second to place the man's voice. It was Constable Tyler, the officer on the night rota, calling from downstairs.

 

“We just had a call in. From the Radcliffe,” Tyler said.

 

Thursday’s heart jumped. Someone on night duty had found a body and had brought it in. 

Morse was dead.

 

“They say they’ve got a man there, brought in by some officers from County. They thought he was just a junkie, wandering about at night, but, the thing of it is, it looks as if he’s been in a knife fight—he’s been stitched up, but there are no records of any one coming into any of the local hospitals with such an injury matching his description.”

 

Thursday’s pulse began to quicken. If it were Morse, then of course there would be no hospital records; Dr. DeBryn had stitched him up.

 

“I talked to them a bit and it sounds, from his description, as if it could be Morse,” Tyler concluded.

 

Thursday scowled. There was something wrong there.

 

 “What do you mean, ‘ _it could be Morse?’_ Doesn’t Morse just _say_ that he’s Morse?”

“That’s just it, sir. It’s . . . . it’s why they thought he was a junkie. The man they found he . . . he doesn’t talk. He’s not talking to anyone.”

 

Thursday’s heart clenched in his chest at the words. For a moment, he could only sit as if frozen, the receiver held tight to his ear, while Sergeant Jakes looked on, his face posing a silent question.

 

Well, it had to be that. This whole damned nightmare had knocked the lad back to square one.

 

Or perhaps not.

Because where the hell had he come from? 

 

It seemed unlikely that the killer had turned Morse loose. Had Morse done what he had not been able to do before? Had he managed to escape his captor on his own?

 

It must be so. Because Thursday felt it—he had the same feeling that he had that first night after he had met Morse, the night that Morse had called him from hospital. Morse had said nothing, but Thursday could tell that it was him, that he was trying to reach out to him, just the same.

Morse was all right. 

He was just waiting, that was all. 

He was waiting for him. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who is sticking with this so far! I hope this chapter isn't too "episodic"--there were a lot of plot points to get through before I could set Morse free. :0) 
> 
>  
> 
> If any one is following any of my other AUs, I haven't forgotten that I left Bix in the movie theater, waiting to see how David Oakes will do portraying him, or Thursday waiting to have a talk with Nick Caraway! Morse... I hope to update both of those fics soon....  
> (And that is possibly the weirdest sentence that I've ever written! :D )


	10. Chapter 10

Thursday strode down the hall, leaving Sergeant Jakes a pace or two behind, his pulse quickening with each step; it sounded for all of the world as if the man who had been picked up by the County police must certainly be Morse, but Thursday didn’t feel as if he could rest easy until he knew it was true, until he saw the lad for himself.

 

At last they came to room 211 and went in through the half-open door, where a nurse was writing on a clipboard, standing over the bed of a pale and slight young man lying quietly, as though asleep.

The nurse looked up from her notes as they stepped inside, alerted by the sound of their footfalls.

 

“Oh. You must be Inspector Thursday,” she said. “This your missing officer, then? I thought that he must be. The doctors weren’t certain, but I could tell. From his eyes. They’re the same as in the newspaper photo.”

For a flash of an instant, Thursday didn’t understand why there would be any question—as soon as he took in the form of the sleeping man, he could tell right away that it was Morse—from the way in which he held himself, even in sleep, from the angle in which his head was turned, and from the color of his tangled and tousled hair.  

As he moved closer, however, he could see why there might be a tinge of doubt; it hadn’t been quite two weeks, but already Morse’s hair had grown into a mess of spiraling waves, his cheekbones more severe, and his face was covered by a sheen of dark-gold stubble.

The hospital blanket was pulled up and tucked under his arms, so that his hands, both bandaged—his right more so than his left—were visible, resting lightly at his sides.

Other than that, he looked unharmed. But yet he seemed out for the count.

 

“What’s wrong with him?” Thursday asked. “They told me he was awake.”

“They just gave him something to help him rest. He’s been fairly disoriented,” the nurse said. “He’s sprained his ankle, and his right hand has been broken fairly badly. It was injured before, did you know? The doctor said that with a bit of minor surgery, he’d have better mobility, but he just patched him up for now.”  

 

That was the first Thursday had heard of such a possibility. If they had him out cold, why hadn’t they fixed his hand properly?

 

And then Thursday felt a surge of annoyance—such a repair would no doubt be expensive, beyond the pocket of the rough sleeper they obviously had taken him for.

 

And who could blame them, really, if they found him wandering around in a t-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms, confused, disheveled and seemingly unable to speak? The lad looked a wreck. He had looked better, truth be told, after the shooting at Lonsdale, when they had found him with the other victims and had mistaken him for a student.

 

“What’s this mess in his hair?” Jakes asked, reaching out and pulling back a spiraling piece that was sticking up on end, coated in blue. “It looks like paint,” he said.

Thursday frowned, and—since it looked as if the staff had done the bare minimum in getting the lad cleaned up—he took Morse’s left, less-injured hand in his and lifted it, revealing a series of scratches along the outside of his arm, and—along the inside—streaks of blue and black and green and red paint, smeared and streaked all the way up to where his arm ended in the capped sleeve of his hospital gown.

 

Jakes’ face was impassive as ever, but an odd spark of comprehension suddenly lit the dark blue eyes.

“Do you think he did it then? Got the man the painting he was wanting?”

“He can’t have actually  _done_ such a thing, Sergeant.”

Jakes made an expression of distaste. “No. But Morse can . . .  He has a way of talking, once he gets going. Maybe he convinced him. Maybe Morse gave him something that he liked well enough and sold him on it.”

 

Thursday laid Morse’s arm down, considering. If Morse had painted the man’s portrait, then he must have seen him.

 

“Nurse, I need him awake. It’s urgent. I need to talk to him,” Thursday said.

She gave him a long look and then nodded.

“All right,” she said. “I expect he’ll be relieved to find that someone he knows has come for him. Maybe he’ll talk to you. Is it ... it is him, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said, heavily. “It’s Constable Morse.”

She nodded again, as if she knew she had been right all along, and went to adjust the IV. As the nurse worked, Thursday scanned the room—a white and bare and stark hospital room.

 

Would the lad be likely to talk to them, in such a place? Was he clear on what had happened? If Morse hadn’t spoken to the officers who found him, or to the hospital staff, could it be that the twin incidents—being held first by Clive Durrell and then by the lunatic at large—had gotten muddled together in his mind?

Had the past few weeks set him back to the state he was in when Thursday had first met him?

 

“If there’s not much wrong with him, can we take him out of here?” Thursday asked.

“I think they want to keep him for twenty-four hours observation. The fact that he’s not speaking is worrisome. They’re running a few tests yet. Just to be on the safe side.”

Thursday scowled. The lad was fine, he was sure of it—just shaken, most likely. The sooner they got him out of here, the sooner this whole nightmare was resolved—allowed to become just one more thing to let recede in the rearview mirror—the better.  

 

The nurse checked the IV bags on the stand once more and said, “He should be coming to in a few minutes. I’ll be just down the hall if you need anything.” And then, she picked up her clipboard and, with a click of her white flats, she went out of the room.

 

Thursday sank down into one of two matching blue plastic chairs at the lad’s bedside, and Jakes—pulling up the smart creases in his trousers as if he was at a diplomatic dinner rather than in a hospital room at six in the morning— followed suit.

 

And then there was nothing to do but wait, watching the gentle rise and fall of Morse’s chest, and listening to the slight rasp of his breathing. Nothing to do but will the lad to wake up and talk to him, just as if this had not happened—just as if they were all just coming down to breakfast on a typical weekday morning.  

Sitting there, in the off-balanced chair, he couldn’t help but remember sitting in another such chair, the first time he had ever spoken to Morse.

 

_“Can you tell me anything about what happened? Last night?”_

_At that, the young man’s eyes began to well a little, and he looked back down at his lap, to avoid answering._

_“They can’t find you, you know," Thursday said. "You’re safe here.”_

_The lad stilled at that. He didn’t look up at Thursday, but the Inspector could tell he was listening._

_“You’re under the protection of the Oxford City Police. I don’t take my duties lightly,” Thursday rumbled._

 

Thursday felt a sharp stab in his chest at the memory. His promises had all been empty promises, someone _had_ found him, had taken him right from out the window of his goddamned house, a hell of a thing. There was nothing else for it. He would see this done right. Morse, the case, all of it. He had given his word.

 

Thursday’s attention then was caught by Morse, who was beginning to stir.  Slowly, his face seemed to flicker, a crease furrowing his brow. He turned his head away, as if trying to find a more comfortable place on the pillow, and then scrunched down, a tad fitfully, as if troubled by a dream.

“Morse?” Thursday asked.

 

He waited a moment for the lad to respond, but no answer came.

 

Thursday got up then, so that he was half-leaning over him, and said, more forcefully, “Morse.”

 

There was a gasp of air, and Morse went still.

“Morse? Can you talk to me, lad?” Thursday asked.

Morse whipped his head around on the pillow so that he was facing them, his eyes widening in surprise.

For a moment, Morse simply looked at him, as if intent on taking in his face; then he closed his eyes and exhaled a deep and shuddering breath, seeming to sag with relief. It was as if he could not believe that Thursday was standing there, as if he could not believe he had gotten himself home.

 

“You’re all right, Morse,” Thursday said.

 

Morse remained as he was, his eyes closed, inhaling and exhaling jaggedly for a few breaths, as if to steady himself.  Then the big blue eyes slid open again—this time, more focused, more settled—and he gave him a quirk of a smile, lifting just one corner of his mouth ruefully, as if embarrassed to be seen in such straights. 

 

“You all right, lad?”

He nodded.

 

“So. What happened?” Jakes asked, at once.

Morse looked a bit startled at that, as if alarmed at having to explain the whole tale in one go.

 

“What?” Jakes asked. “Did the lunatic like what you painted for him and let you go, then?”

 

Morse, looking bewildered, slowly shook his head.

 

“No? You sure look like you’ve been painting. You’re covered in the stuff. Christ. You’re a sight, Morse. Looks like you must have been hurling it at the walls, working on some huge production like at your room at the Thursdays’.”

 

Suddenly, Morse whitened against the white hospital linen, and his eyes swerved from Jakes to him, widening in silent reprimand.

 

Well, if Morse had the wherewithal to be affronted by the fact that Jakes had seen the walls of his room, that settled it—he’d be all right.

Thursday was just about to explain that Jakes had happened to be with him when Win had called in to the station, reporting him missing, when Jakes cut in, seemingly hell-bent on getting to Morse’s story. 

 

“So you just made a break for it,” Jakes clarified.

 

Morse nodded in agreement.

 

“The nurse said you sprained your ankle. What? Did you drop out of a window?”  

 

Morse frowned slightly, and then nodded again.

 

“So he doesn’t know you’re gone?”

 

Morse shrugged.

 

“Damn it, Morse. This isn’t bloody twenty questions,” Jakes snapped.

 

Morse regarded him solemnly, almost warily, his expression closing off like the sun going behind a cloud.

 

“All right, sergeant,” Thursday said. “Give the man a chance to catch his breath.”

Thursday turned then, to Morse. Because there was one crucial point that they _did_ need to know.

 

“You do look as if you’ve been painting, lad. Did you paint something, then? The man’s portrait? Did you see what he looked like?”

 

Morse looked at him a long moment, as if he was struggling to find the words to explain, the light fading further and further from his face, until he wore only the blank expression with which he had looked at DeBryn, when they had found him amidst the carnage at Lonsdale, before the medics had bundled him into the ambulance.

 

“It’s just a yes or no question, Morse,” Thursday said, lowering and softening his voice. “You can just nod or shake your head if that’s all you’ve a mind to.”

 

But Morse looked pained all the same, as if he did not know how to answer.

Then, finally, he turned his face away and sighed, as if utterly defeated.

 

“Oy!” Jakes shouted. “The Inspector asked you a question. You don’t turn your back on your guv’nor like that.”

“It’s all right, Jakes.”

“It’s insubordination, is what it is, sir. The DI asks you a question, you answer, yeah, Constable Morse?”

 

In answer to Jakes’ lecture, Morse, predictably enough, responded by putting one bandaged hand over his face, looking more worn out and less likely to talk than ever before. 

 

Jakes raised himself up to his full height, giving every sign of making a few more choice remarks, but Thursday held up a hand for him to wait.

 

The first time Morse had ever spoken to him had been in the garden, in the indigo of the early morning, just before dawn. Morse was stretched out in the grass, looking up at the sky, and before he began to speak, he had turned his face away, just as he had now.

 

Thursday said nothing, but only walked over to the light switch on the far wall, and turned it, dimming the lights. Perhaps, just like on that morning, Morse would be more likely to talk if he felt as if he wasn’t so much under their scrutiny, not quite so much on display.

 

“Hospital lights are always so damned harsh, aren’t they?  Might have strained my eyes, reading all of Pettifer’s files last night,” Thursday grumbled.

 

Morse seemed to stiffen, his whole body singing to attention under the thin hospital blanket.

 

 _Who is Pettifer?_ he could almost hear him ask. His curiosity would get the best of him before long. He just needed a moment, that was all.

 

“Morse?” Thursday asked, after a space of silence had passed.

 

“What day is it?” Morse asked at last, keeping his face buried in his bandaged hand, his voice rusted with disuse.

 

What was he thinking? What did he remember? He seemed to recognize them, had not balked or looked confused at having been addressed as Constable. _Had_ his two abductions run together in a blur? Was he turned around, as befuddled as the hospital staff seemed to think?

 

Thursday considered for a moment and said, “Corned beef.”

 

“No,” Morse said softly.

 

Thursday frowned. That was not how the game went.

 

“I mean, the date. What year is it?”

 

So. That was it, then. Suddenly, Thursday remembered the shock on Morse’s face as he looked at the sports page on that first morning with Sam. Christ. He had no idea how long he’d been gone.

 

“It’s 1965. It’s October the seventeenth.”

Morse’s shoulders shook slightly, then, his face still buried in his hand, as if he was sobbing quietly with relief.

Thursday looked sharply at Jakes, to warn him off saying anything, not to taunt the man when he was down—Morse was all right; he just needed to get the last remnants of fear out of his system.

Morse took a shuddering breath and murmured, “I thought so. I didn’t think it was long before I....”

“Before you what?” Thursday asked.

 

But Morse said nothing.

 

“So did you see the man, then?” Thursday asked.

“No,” Morse said.

“Then how did you paint his  . . . “ Jakes began, but Thursday cut him off with a raised hand.

“He . . . .  he only came in twice,” Morse said. “It was dark. He only. . . He only came in when it was dark.”

“Came in where?” Jakes said.

“The room,” Morse answered.

 

Jakes rolled his eyes at the unhelpfulness of this answer.

 

Thursday again held up a hand. “Did he say his name? Did he mention a Keith Miller?”

 

Morse was silent for a moment, as if mulling the question over.

 

“No,” he said.  

 

“Did he talk to you at all?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What did he say?”  

 

“A lot of rubbish.”

 

“Like what?” Jakes said. “Why don’t you give us a proper answer and let us decide.”

 

Morse sighed heavily, a sound muffled by the palm of his bandaged hand.  

 

For a long while, he said nothing.

 

“To be clever is to be alone,” he said quietly, at last.

 

This, too, seemed to provoke Jakes—and more so than the situation warranted.

 

“Yeah. Well. You aren’t all that clever, Morse, because we’re standing right here, aren’t we?”

 

“No,” Morse said.  “That’s what he said. That man. How relieved he was to find me . . . _I see it in you. The same intelligence._ How I . . . . How we were just alike.”

 

“That’s it? That’s all you got, then?” Jakes asked.

 

“He .... he wanted me to talk to him. He said he would understand me. He said he was the only one who would ever understand me.”

 

Jakes shook his head. “So. That’s it, then? Just one misfit talking to another?”

 

It happened so fast, Thursday could hardly believe it.  Morse had been lying with his face obscured by his hand, when suddenly, at Jakes’ words, he turned and leaped up from the pillows, as if to hurl himself at the sergeant.

 

“Morse!” Thursday shouted.

 

Thursday had always had quick reflexes, but Jakes’, it transpired, were faster, and he caught Morse easily by the arms as the constable struggled against him and shouted, “No! I didn’t! I didn’t talk to him at all!”

Morse, confined by the bed rail and hooked to the IV, was easily subdued—and, in one quick movement, Jakes released Morse’s arms and tossed him back onto the bed.

 

Morse’s eyes in his white face were a bit feverish, a bit wild—it was hard to know if he was more shocked by his own actions or by Jakes’ swift and efficient response.

 

“Jakes,” Thursday said, a bit of warning in his voice. It didn’t suit, manhandling a man in a hospital bed.

 

“No,” Jakes said. “That’s the third time he’s had a go at me, sir. Twice since he’s been in uniform.”

“That’s not on, sergeant. You were having a dig at him and you know it.”

“It’s the kiddies, I’m thinking of. He’s snatched one, hasn’t he, this madman? How long before he grabs another?”

 

Jakes turned, then, to Morse. “Time to stop the wallowing and start thinking. So. Where were you?”

Morse blinked, the big blue eyes the only color in his white face.

“I .... I don’t know.”

“Well, you dropped from a window.”

“Yes.”

 

He looked over Morse, who was cradling his arm in the spot where Jakes had grabbed him.

 

“Your arms are scratched up. Looks like you’ve been heading through bramble. What? Were you out in the country?”   

“Yes.”

“All right. So where were you trying to go? Do you know that?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“The station.”

“Where did you get picked up?”

“I don’t know,” Morse said, his cracked voice gathering strength. “I just ran, all right? I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t think about anything. I just ran for it, all right?”

 

“County said they found him along Botley Road, just west of the canal,” Thursday said quietly.

 

Morse’s eyes swiveled to him, then, as if this was all news to him.

 

“So. Most likely you were on the west side of the station, if you were there, walking east,” Jakes concluded.

“I suppose so. I don’t know. I got turned around so many times,” Morse said.

“You think you could find the place again, if we drove around? Would you see any landmarks, turns that you would recognize?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” Morse said, miserably.

“Don’t give me that. If you can remember who owned the Pears Soap Company in the nineteenth century and that ‘Ferdinand Lured by Ariel’ was the first painting that Millais ever painted in plain air, then I think you can remember where you were last night, Constable.”

“Plein air,” Morse corrected.

“What?” Jakes snapped.

“It’s  _plein air_. After the French for outdoors. Not ‘plain air.’”

Jakes’ heavy brows drew together; he glared at Morse as if he’d like nothing better than to throttle him.

 

It seemed a fine time for Thursday to step in. It was clear Morse had had enough for the time being.

 

As much as Thursday was annoyed by Jakes’ doggedness, a part of him was grateful, too. Thursday didn’t want to have to treat Morse like just another reluctant witness.

Morse trusted him.

 

And god only knew, he had to trust someone.

 

“All right. Just rest up, then, Morse. I do have to ask, though, about that paint. It seems as if you did have a lot, lad. Was it artist’s paints?  Or . . .”

“No,” Morse said. “It was .... It was in cans.”

“The sort from a hardware store?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got at least three or four colors there,” Thursday noted.

But Morse said nothing, staring instead at a point on the blanket.

Thursday turned to Jakes. “It’s sort of unusual for someone to go in and buy that many colors in one go, isn’t it? Maybe what we should do, is get Fancy and Trewlove headed around the hardware stores, see if anyone bought an unusual amount of paint. Maybe our Keith Miller wrote a cheque somewhere this time. Maybe we can get an address.”

“Who’s Keith Miller?” Morse asked.

“Never mind that now,” Thursday said, his voice low and reassuring.

“Some madman Dr. Cronyn’s heard tell of. We thought it was he who bought those flowers,” Jakes supplied.

“Why?” Morse asked.

“A woman in a florist shop told Fancy and Trewlove that a Mr. Miller had bought flowers like the ones you found in Trill Mill Stream.”

 

Morse asked no more, but rather collapsed back against the pillows, his eyes shadowed and slightly unfocused, as if he was looking at something only he could see.

 

“You’ll feel better once you’re home, lad,” Thursday said.

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t go back there.”

“Why?” 

“That man,” he said. 

 

Thursday winced at Morse’s use of the term.

 

“See here. I didn’t go halfway across Europe to put Jerry back in his box to have some madman tell me who or who isn’t welcome at my house. You know how many years I’ve been paying on that place? There’s only two people who decide that. And that’s me and Win. Are we clear?”

“Yes,” Morse said. “I suppose . . . I suppose it should be all right. He said ....” and here Morse broke off, casting his eyes down to his hands, resting, now, in his lap.

 

“He said what?” Thursday asked.

 

Morse took a deep breath. “He said that he needn’t come to the house if I got away. He said ... that I would end up coming to him.”

 

Thursday snorted. The sick bastard.

 

“Shows what he knows. The only way you’ll be going near that madman is to arrest him,” Thursday said.

Morse said nothing.

“Well,” Thursday said. “I best be going in. I’ll ring Win on the way down—she’ll be relieved to hear you got yourself out. She can come and stay for a while, most likely, sit with you a bit.”

Morse scowled in confusion. “Why would she want to sit here? There’s nothing here to do.”

“To see you, you dolt. Why do you think?” Jakes said in disgust.

Morse frowned, looking unconvinced.

 

They were just heading out the door, when Morse shouted. “The wallpaper!”

Jakes turned. “Not this William Morris wallpaper thing again. Are you still on about Frida Yelland’s frock?”

“No,” Morse said. “That man. He said he hated the wallpaper. In the room.”

“What?” Jakes asked.

“He said he hated the wallpaper. The place. It was . . . it was like an inn or a hotel or a large manor house. He .... He must have lived there before. He said he always hated the wallpaper.”

Jakes nodded. “There ya go then. Narrowing it down all the time. We’ll find this place yet.”

 

Thursday wasn’t so sure—it seemed possible that Morse might not have been able to keep a straight course as he was trying to get back to the station.

Still, it was worth a shot. There had to be a way to track this Keith Miller—or whoever the hell he was—down somehow.

In the meanwhile, he’d have to call Win. And the station, too. They really ought to put a guard on the place, in case the lunatic did come back for Morse, after all.

 

*******

 

“There’s nothing to do here,” Morse said, as soon as she walked in through the doorway. It was as if he was giving her fair warning, as if he felt that ‘having nothing to do’ was as terrifying as facing a lion or a tiger.  

“Well, that’s all right, love,” Win said, crossing over to one of the battered blue plastic chairs by his bedside. “Glad of a bit of a break, to be honest. And happy to have you back, all in one piece.”

Morse watched her as she sank into the chair, but said nothing.

“Brought you a sandwich, if you’d like. Hospital food can be a bit tasteless, I know.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Thursday,” he said. “I’d like that.”

She began to pull it out of her bag, but then nodded toward his bandaged hands.

“Can you eat it, do you think?” she queried.

“Yes,” Morse said, taking it in his left hand. “It would actually be easier, eating this, than trying to manage a fork. Thank you.”

 

He sat then, working steadily through the corned beef sandwich, looking straight ahead of him. He seemed dazed and more than a bit preoccupied. He was still trying to process the events of the past few weeks, most likely—and, if she knew Morse—he was also trying to fit them in with what Fred and Sergeant Jakes must have told him about the case, about what had been happening since the night he had been taken.

 

It seemed best to follow Morse’s lead, to let him speak when he felt ready, and so Win busied herself with a bit of knitting she had brought along in her bag.

 

He seemed grateful for the company, Morse, just not up for much in the way of conversation. But he was often like that.

He was quiet for a long while, and then, right as he was polishing off the last bite of the crust of the sandwich, he seemed to jolt a bit, as if something had occurred to him.

“Do you think I should . . . .” he began.

“Should what?”

“I was just thinking. Did . . . . did Tony know I was gone?”

 

Win sat up straighter in her chair at that. Had anyone told Anthony Donn that Morse had been found?

 

“Yes,” Win said. “He knew. It was in the papers. He . . .”

“The _papers?_ ” Morse cried, cutting her off.  

“Yes. Fred told me that Tony came down to the station to meet with him, to see if he might offer a ransom.”

“What?” Morse asked. “To the  _station?_ To talk to Inspector Thursday?” He buried his face in his hand. “Oh god.”

“I’m sure he was just concerned, Morse. You are one of his oldest friends.”

 

But Morse just shook his head.

 

“I’ll help you down to the nurses’ desk, if you’d like to call,” Win said.

“No,” Morse replied, heavily. “No. I don’t feel up to it.”

“You were just despairing of having nothing to do. It might do you a bit of good, just to walk up there and back.”

“No,” Morse said.

“Well,” she said, rising from her chair and laying her knitting down. “I’ll just go down and let him know, shall I? I’m sure he’s been worried to death. It’s not right, leaving him in the dark.”

“No,” Morse said. “That will be worse.” He heaved another sigh. “I’ll go. I’ll do it.”

Win laughed. “What’s so terrible, Morse?”

“I don’t know. It’s just . . . . It’s just embarrassing, isn’t it?”

“Embarrassing?” Win asked, incredulously.  

 

You would think such a thing would be the least of his worries.

 

“It is,” Morse insisted. “It was hard enough the first time, calling him out of the blue.”

He scowled softly.

“I feel like a lost cat,” he said.

 

************

Morse stood at the phone at the nurse’s station, holding the beige receiver to his ear, ruffling the hair at the back of his nape and looking miserable. He had gotten flustered when he realized that he needed Win to dial for him, and now he looked all the more strained, waiting for Tony to come on the line.

 

“Tony?” he said, at last. “It’s me.”

“Yes,” he said.

“No.”

“I went out the window.”

“No. . . . no. . . you don’t have to. Tony . . . ”

 

Morse slowly pulled the receiver away from his ear.

 

“He wants to come and see me,” he said, glumly.

“Well of course he does, love,” Win said.

Morse made a pained expression.

 

Suddenly, a nurse swooped down on them, striding down the hall.

“What are you doing down here, wandering about?” she clucked. “You’re supposed to be staying off that ankle.”

 

But Morse said nothing. It was as if he didn’t hear her. He couldn’t have looked more stricken as if he was awaiting his own beheading.

**************

Win didn’t understand it. Morse was naturally a private and reticent person, it was true, but this was a bit too much of a test even for _her_ patience.

How could Morse have escaped from a serial killer less than twenty-four hours ago, and now look so distraught over a visit from an old friend?

Old bonds from school days can seem tiresome at times, but it was good for Morse, surely, to maintain  _some_  ties from his previous life.

From what Fred said about the way he got on with the other constables down at the station, it seemed Morse could use all of the friends he could get. 

Yet, here he sat, as if he was steeling himself for the worst.

 

Win took up her knitting again, leaving him to stew—anything she said was bound to backfire, to make him more coltish, at that point.

 

 

It was only about a half an hour or so before Anthony Donn came sailing into the room, a pure wavelength of energy. He was as slight as Morse, and even an inch or two shorter, but somehow, it didn’t seem that way. Unlike Morse, who tended to slouch and curl in on himself, Tony had a manner of fully inhabiting the space he occupied, in that way that so many posh people do, those raised with self-assurance and poise and a certain sense of the rightness of their actions.

“Pagan,” he said, crossing the room in only a few paces. “Pagan. Are you all right?”

He put a hand to Morse’s mess of tangled curls, some twisted and tipped in dried blue paint, and ducked down, as if to look into Morse's downturned face more clearly, as if to reassure himself that he was well, looking so relieved it seemed he almost wanted to kiss him. 

As if he wanted to . . .

 

And suddenly, Win wasn’t sure why she hadn’t seen it before.

Of course, with Morse, any such sign would be easy to miss. And this, she was sure, whatever it was, must be a new development between them.

 

Morse and Tony had known each other for years, and had, by all accounts, been merely friends. If their relationship had been closer, doubtless Tony would not have felt he needed to stand on ceremony when Morse didn’t write back from the Army all those years ago; he would have done more to go looking for him, despite what might be his wishes.

 

So, it wasn’t a spark, really. More like a pot that had been left on the back burner, one that neither of them had remembered, left slowly simmering until it began boiling over onto the stovetop.

 

Perhaps that’s the only way it _could_ go with Morse.

 

Now, she could understand why Morse had been in such a rush to bundle Tony out of the door, on that day when she said that Fred might stop in for lunch. Not much escaped her Fred. And if he had an inkling of something between them, he no doubt had advised Morse against it, what with Morse just starting off on a career as a police officer.

 

“You didn’t have to come here. There’s nothing to do here,” Morse said.

“I wanted to see you. Christ,” Tony said. “I couldn’t help but think . . . .”

 

He didn’t finish his sentence, but Win knew all too well how he meant to complete it. He couldn’t help but think that Morse might be found dead, like so many of the others, that he might go missing for another five years.

 

“So what happened?”  Tony asked.

“Oh,” Morse said. “I told you. I went out the window.”

Tony looked at him incredulously. “And that’s that?”

Morse heaved a shuddering breath and looked before him, focusing on some point on the white hospital blanket, flecked with blue dots, as if it held some object of fascination discernable only to him.

 

“I’m sorry but . . . But I already told it once. Sergeant Jakes ripped me one side up the other about it. I . . . I don’t really want to tell it all again.”

“I’m sure he didn’t do _that,_ ” Win said.

“Yes, he did. But it’s all right. I just . . . .”

 

But what he was just, he seemed unable to say.   

 

Tony frowned.

 

“Do you want to go outside, for a while?” he asked.

“They won’t let me, I don’t think. They made a fuss when I went to the phone.”

“My mother used to take my great aunt to the courtyard here all of the time. You remember my Aunt Charlotte?” he asked.

“Yes,” Morse said. “She was the one with all of those Pekinese.”

“That’s right. Well-remembered,” Tony said. “She was a real tyrant, all right, and even worse in hospital. I think my mother thought we were giving the nurses a break, taking her out for a bit. As long as we popped her in a wheelchair, they didn’t mind.”

Morse twisted his mouth at once, prickly as a hedgehog. “I don’t need to be wheeled about. It’s barely a sprain. I ran for miles on worse when I ran cross country.”

“No. But it would get you outside.”

“I’m sure you have other things to do,” Morse said stiffly. “Better things to do with your time than to sit around here.”

 

He said it as if concerned for Tony, but it was clear that he was really speaking for himself.

 

It was an effort for Win not to roll her eyes.

 

“Well, it looks to me as if, for now, you’ve nothing better on,” Tony said. “And neither do I.” He leaned forward, then, and whispered conspiratorially, “It’s why they call us the idle rich.”

Morse huffed a rueful laugh.

 

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” Win said, getting up and collecting her knitting. “I’ll head home and start up tea. Shepherd’s pie all right? If they don’t let you out tonight, we’ll come back to bring a bit by.”

 “It’s . . . I mean . . . you don’t have to come back later. There’s nothing much to do here,” Morse said.

“Yes,” she laughed, “So you said.”

“What?” Morse asked.

But Win put her hand to his face fondly and said, “Never mind, love. We’ll be back tonight, all right?”  

“All right,” Morse said. “Thank you.”

 

Win left the room, half closing the door again behind her. She wasn’t quite sure what was transpiring between them.

But somehow she doubted that one of “Britain’s Ten Most Eligible Bachelors” was as eligible as that magazine article had proclaimed.

 

*********

 

“I feel ridiculous,” Pagan said. “Why do they have to give you such clothes as these? It’s as if they want to render you completely without personhood.”

 

He did look quite unlike himself, in the thin hospital gown, his hair wild and his face covered in a stubble, giving him a disreputable, Bohemian air.

Looking at Pagan, trying to talk to him, was like trying to solve a puzzle backwards. Tony had thought, perhaps, since Pagan had told him what had happened in the past, he might confide in him this time, but it seemed as if he had used up his quota of words, talking to the police.

Well. At least this time the police knew what had happened. At least this time, the culprit would be caught before he could hold Pagan hostage for another five years.

 

Pagan’s hands were bandaged, and Tony couldn’t help but wonder—had he ripped himself free, then, struggled and fought to escape his captivity in a way he had not been able to before?  Did he have a better sense of himself, more confidence and conviction, to not let himself be brainwashed by whatever that madman had to tell him? Did he feel more compelled to fight for his freedom, because he had something to come back to?

 

And, if so, was he, Tony, a part of those aforementioned reasons?

 

“Move over,” Pagan said.

“What?” Tony asked.

“Move over,” Pagan repeated. “I’m not going to just sit _here._ ”

 

Tony moved down a bit on the bench in the hospital courtyard, and Pagan began to haul himself out of the wheelchair. He stopped suddenly, and gave him a severe look, and at first Tony wasn’t sure why, until he realized he was trying to adjust the hospital gown, pulling it fast behind him, as if trying to keep some sense of his dignity.

 

Pagan always did have quite a bit of that middle-class sense of modestly, but it wasn’t as if Tony hadn’t already seen quite a lot of what there was to see, back in those days when they shared a flat, and Pagan had roamed about half-dressed, off to retrieve something left in a laundry basket in the hall, or back in those days when they had all spent summer afternoons on Lake Silence, when he had stripped down to his boxers, a pale shadow through the trees, before taking a plunge into the dark water.

But that was before they had kissed. Now he was seemed almost shy of him. Was that because he felt that the scattered kisses between them had meant something, then? Had been more than mere curiosity?

At any rate, Pagan needn’t have worried himself. It was hardly the most alluring item of clothing.

 

Pagan shifted up onto the bench then, stretching his legs out before him and settling a hospital-issue blanket on his lap. For a while, they said nothing. Tony wanted to fill the chilled autumn air with words, with questions, but he knew somehow that it would be pointless, that he’d receive no answer.

Instead, they looked out over the courtyard, to where a crow perched in a small, yellowing poplar tree, throwing its head back and cawing, the one sound amidst the whisper and rustle of leaves.

 

“I’m sorry,”’ Pagan said.

“For what?” Tony asked.

“I’m just... I’m knackered. I’m not very good company, am I?”

“It’s all right,” Tony said.

 

And it was. It was enough just having him back again in any capacity.  Even, as he was now, looking exhausted and worn, as if ready to fall asleep.

 

It was easy, really, being with Pagan again.

 

That damned article, naming him as one of Britain’s most eligible bachelors, had been a nuisance, really. Everywhere he went—from a party at the neighbor’s, to that fair, to even the bloody Fenix factory _gift shop_ —he was beset by matrons who were sure that either they or their daughters would be the perfect match for him. For a while, after that article had first come out last summer, he could scarcely go anywhere without being assaulted by proposals.

 

It was a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a large fortune, must be in want of a wife.

 

That’s what everyone wanted, wasn’t it? Find the right girl, get married, settle down?

 

It’s what Pagan had certainly wanted. But never Tony. Not really.

All he had wanted was this, to sit on a bench in a small courtyard with the last of the year’s marigolds, with Pagan’s head resting heavily on his shoulder, smelling of leaves and vanilla and  . . . paint?

 

Tony turned and noticed that one of Pagan’s spiraling red-gold waves had been coated in blue. He looked down, sharply then, at Pagan’s slumping form. Now that he was not confined to the bed or the wheelchair, now that his arms were hanging limply, his hands falling loosely into his lap, Tony noticed the streaks of paint, all up his wrists, all up the milk pale skin of the inside of his arms.

 

Had he been . . . painting?

 

The madman at large, he knew, had also stolen several works of art. He hadn’t zeroed in on Pagan because . . . .

 

“Pagan?” Tony asked.

“Hmmmmm?”

“You don’t think . . . . that madman wasn’t interested in you because you painted, was he? I mean, he didn’t target you because of what I told the reporter in that article?”

 

Pagan said nothing.

 

“Pagan?”

 

“Who knows why anyone does anything?” he murmured.

 

Before Tony had a chance to mull the meaning of that over, Pagan said, “Perhaps I will sit back in the chair. I’m really tired. This bench is as hard and as cold as a stone.”

Tony laughed. “That’s because it _is_ stone, Pagan.”

“Oh,” he murmured. But he made no effort to move, leaving Tony to read into that, as with everything else, what he will.

 

******

 

Jim Strange had jumped at the chance for the assignment.

In light of Morse’s abduction and return, it seemed prudent to post a constable or two at the Thursdays’ home, to offer extra protection, seeing as how the madman who had broken into his room was still at large.

It would mean a chance to chat with the missus, to build a rapport with Thursday’s son and daughter, to have tea with the Inspector—a real chance for the guv’nor to get to know him as a person, rather than as a mere constable.

All of which wouldn’t harm his career.

 

Morse certainly was an awkward sod. He didn’t know what a chance he had. Here he was, lodging with the Thursdays. How many first-year constables actually got to board with his station’s guv’nor?

And yet, it was clear, he was throwing the chance away. Granted, the bloke had been kidnapped by a madman, but Strange rather doubted he would have let the experience render him so absolutely devoid of common courtesy, especially with the Inspector, especially if he had the chance Morse did to make connections, to bolster his career.

 

When Morse had first come home from hospital that morning, accompanied by Mrs. Thursday and Joan in a squad car, he seemed as if he hadn’t a good morning for anyone; instead, he stopped at the round mirror in the front hall, staring glumly at his reflection.

“Maybe I’ll leave the beard,” he said.

“I wouldn’t call it a beard,” Joan laughed, her blue eyes bright with laughter.

“What would you call it?”

“Negligence,” she said. She came up behind him, then, all but resting her chin on his shoulder. “Besides,” she added. “You don’t look like you.”

“Oh? And what does me look like?” Morse answered.

“Not like this.”

“Well, there you go. Maybe I’m not me anymore.”

Joan only shook her head. “Upstairs with you, then, and get that off. And get that paint out of your hair, too, while you’re at it,” she added, in her cheery no-nonsense manner.

“Mmmmmm,” was all Morse could say before slouching off up the stairs.

 

 

Morse had all the looks, but they wouldn’t do him any good if he went about like that. He’d never win any girl, let alone a clever and quick and pretty one like Joan if that was the best he could do.

 

“Would you like a cuppa, Jim? I’m getting one,” Joan asked, calling though the doorway to the den, as she hung up her pale green coat in the hall.

Strange sat up straighter in his spot in a well-worn armchair. “Yes. Please, Miss Thursday.”

“Joan,” she corrected.

“Joan,” Strange said, smiling.

Joan smiled back, a smile that brought out two dimples in her cheeks, and sailed off into the kitchen.

 

There. That was the way it was done.

 *********

Eventually, Morse trundled downstairs, showered and changed, carrying a record player in a red case and a few records. He had shaved, as instructed, and his face looked a bit pink; he had a cut, too, right along the edge of his jaw. He must have made a clumsy job of it, what with his right hand bandaged up, and the tips of his fingers on his left. But he was a bit more presentable, all the same.

“Hello, Morse,” Jim said.

“Hmmmmmm,” Morse said.

He went over to a small table under the window and began to set the record player up. Then he placed a record on the turntable and set the needle down, releasing a wail of foreign gibberish and shrieking.

 

Morse closed his eyes, as if it was all quite satisfactory, and then, without further ceremony, collapsed onto the sofa.

 

He lay there for quite some time, as the record played, his big blue eyes unfocused, resisting all attempts at normal conversation.

 

It was awkward as hell.

 

“You know,” Strange said, at last. “You might remember more about what happened if you tried writing it all down. That’s what I did, when I was trying to study for the law and evidence exam,” Strange suggested.  

 

Morse scowled. “How am I supposed to write anything?”

 

Strange had forgotten, for a moment, that his hands were bandaged.

 

“I’ve had enough advice for one day,” Morse said. As if to let him know that, as far as he was concerned, the conversation was over.

 

But it was just . . . . just weird, simply sitting there. So Strange tried again.

 

“Then how do you feel about giving some?”

“About what?” Morse asked.

“Evening suits. I’m on detail in a week or so. For this party at Lake Silence. This Bixby character must be mad, pulling a party like this, in the midst of all this mess. So many of the murders and abductions have been tied in with art thefts, after all. But, he’s said he’s planned it long ago and “the show must go, on, old man.” Mr. Bright’s not best pleased about it, but there’s nothing we can do to stop a private citizen throwing a party.”

“Mmmmm,” Morse said, as if scarcely paying him any attention. He thought that he might be interested in that, too. He thought that Morse palled around with those Lake Silence poshies.

“I’ll be needing it anyway,” Strange tried again. “The suit.” And here, he lowered his voice. “I’ve been invited to a meet and greet next week. With a view of being initiated into a certain ancient fraternity.”

At last, he caught Morse’s attention, even if it was only a disparaging face.

Strange might have known he’d have that reaction to anything remotely clubbable.

“I don’t have your brains, matey," he chuckled. "Never will have. Some of us need a leg-up. Do you know ACC Deare? He’s grand master at the Domesday Lodge. I’d say getting in better with him couldn’t hurt, yeah?”

 

For a while, Morse said nothing.

Then he said, “A man can’t serve two masters. Sooner or later, you’ll have to choose. Just . . . don’t lose your way. It’s easily done.”

Strange frowned.

 

What in the world was that supposed to mean?

 

Just then, the horn blared from the front drive. Morse closed his eyes, looking drained.

Strange snorted. Jakes was making a point of it, then, his rank. If it was Thursday he was coming to collect, he would have rung the doorbell, said his how-do-you-dos to the missus, but, since it was only Morse, a lowly PC, he was picking up, a sharp blast on the horn was all he’d take the time for.

“I don’t see why Fancy couldn’t have taken me about,” Morse said.

“He’s with Trewlove, asking who might have bought that paint,” Strange said.

 

Privately, Strange wondered if they trusted Fancy with Morse. The two of them together did seem to get easily blown off course.

 

Jakes blared the horn again.

“I’m coming,” Morse said to the wall.

 

Strange shook his head. Jakes really could be a bit of an arse. It really wasn’t in his best interest, looking down so on Morse, when Inspector Thursday made it clear he was a bit of a favorite of his.

And who could blame Thursday, really, for wanting to root for him a bit? Strange hadn’t forgotten that tiny white cell he and Jakes had found at Clive Durrell’s house. You really couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the bloke.

 

But then, Jakes was another one who didn’t care about his career.

The horn sounded one more time.

 

“I’m coming,” Morse snapped, this time, finally dragging himself from off the couch as reluctantly as if it was his abductor he was heading off with, rather than his sergeant.

 

Strange wasn’t sure which of the two of them he pitied more.

At any rate, they had better learn to rub along and put their differences aside. If they could find the place where Morse had been held, they could call for back-up, might possibly catch the man then and there. And, if not, at least they might search the place, find some clue as to the man’s identity.

The madman’s victims had seemingly been chosen entirely random.

Who knew whose life might hang in the balance, if they couldn’t find a way to stop him?

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I just sent Morse and Jakes off on a road trip of sorts....


	11. Chapter 11

It was all pointless. Morse didn’t seem to have the slightest idea as to where the hell he had been the night before last.

You would think he would have had the presence of mind to have picked out a few landmarks at least, to have paid a little attention as to what was right in front of him.

 

Jakes had long suspected that Morse was one of those people who couldn’t see the forest for the trees. And now he had concrete evidence to prove it.

“What do you remember? Try to think now,” Jakes said.

“Trees,” Morse answered at once.

 

Jakes, gripping the wheel of the black police Jag with the palm of one hand, took a drag from his cigarette to calm his ragged nerves. 

 “What’s the first thing you remember _other_ than trees?” he asked.

“Those officers from County, trying to talk to me. They wouldn’t leave me alone.”

Jakes sighed. “Not helpful, Morse. We need to go about this more methodically.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying all along,” he cried.

“I can’t take you to every old, big house, every hotel or inn in Oxfordshire, if you can’t at least point me in the right direction,” Jakes retorted.

 

Morse turned and looked out the window, watching the yellow and crimson trees drift by, giving one the hope that he might  _actually_  be trying to look for something that might seem familiar.

Instead, he began to slowly recite a poem.

 

_“That time of year thou mayst in me behold_

_When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang_

_Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,_

_Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang._

_In me thou see’st the twilight of such day_

_As after sunset fadeth in the west;_

_Which by and by black night doth take away_ ,

_Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest. .  .”_

 

“What’s that?” Jakes asked, cutting him off. “Shakespeare?”

“Yes,” Morse said, turning to him at once.

 

It was a wild guess, based on the language, but Morse need never know.

 

But Morse was watching him now, expectantly, as if he was waiting for him to say more.

It took Jakes almost a full minute to realize that Morse had misunderstood: that Morse thought that he had finally stumbled upon something that they might have in common.

It was as if he was waiting for him to start up a nice chat all about the merits of the Bard, about his best use of iambic perimeter or some such thing, right here in the bloody car.

 

That was the trouble with Morse. Whenever you tried to help the bloke out, he rewarded you only with a severe look, as if he suspected you were insulting his intelligence. Or worse, he shook his head disdainfully and rolled his eyes at you the minute he thought that you had turned away.

But just when you began to give up on him as a pretentious pain in the arse, he’d give you a look just like this, the one he was regarding him with now, a look that tottered right on the edge of unbridled need, as if he hoped to find in you a friend at last.

 

The look did nothing to improve Jakes’ mood. He was feeling a bit guilty, truth be told, about a conversation he had had with Mr. Bright earlier that morning.

 

 

Mr. Bright, it seemed, wasn’t convinced— given his behavior when he was picked up by County—that Morse should return to the force.

 

Not just for the time being. But ever.

 

Mr. Bright was never as keen on Thursday’s protégé as the Inspector was. And Morse’s unpredictable conduct around the nick, the contempt he had shown for the experts that Mr. Bright had called in, and most of all, that complaint from ACC Deare, did nothing to aid his cause.

 

And now Mr. Bright seemed inclined to believe that Morse’s being abducted a second time— just months after having been freed from his first bout of captivity—must surely have affected the man’s mental state, making him unsuited to return to police work.

 

“It’s troubling that he refused to speak when he was found,” Mr. Bright said. “And from what I understand, he was a bit physical with the two officers who tried to take him to hospital.”

“I would imagine he was, sir, if he didn’t recognize them. He had just gotten away from a serial killer. Why should he trust the first person he sees?” Jakes had replied.

“And there are those times he’s become violent with you, his own sergeant. I wasn’t greatly encouraged by what you told me of how he behaved in hospital.”

 

Jakes frowned. Sure, when Mr. Bright had begun to ask him about Morse, he had told him the truth, vented his frustration and exasperation with the man.

But he hadn’t intended his complaints to be interpreted in _so_  dire of a manner.

 

“I wouldn’t say  _violent_ , sir,” Jakes amended. “Wasn’t as if he inflicted any damage. Not too much _to_ Morse, really.”

“And that painting you saw in his room. It sounds quite fanciful. Almost . . . delusional. Really, I’m surprised at Thursday for not mentioning such a thing. And it was he who was championing his cause all through training.”

 

Jakes swallowed. All he needed was to get the guv’nor against him.

He was wishing more and more that he had never said a thing.

 

 

“Who is Pettifer?” Morse asked.  

Jakes blinked, thrown out of his reverie.

“What?”

“Pettifer. Inspector Thursday mentioned a man called Pettifer, said he’d been looking through his files.”

“Right,” Jakes said. “Oh. Well, there was a suicide. Or, an apparent suicide. While you were .... uh, away. A man either hurled himself or was hurled off a building. He had a pocket full of false business cards.”

“Business cards?”

“Yeah. Dodgy, really. Fancy and Trewlove found his car, abandoned, managed to trace the registration to a John Pettifer, a private investigator in London.”

“ _Private_ _Investigator_?” Morse asked. “There could be scores of people who might have wanted him dead, if he was in the business of tracking people and getting the goods on them.”

“That was our thinking,” Jakes said. “The thing of it is . . . .”

 

Jakes hesitated. It wasn’t as if Morse was any longer on the case, being a victim and a witness now.

 

“What?” Morse asked, at once.

Jakes shrugged. “He had a notebook, that was found at the scene. And now it looks as if it’s taken a walk.”

 

Morse frowned at that. Jakes could practically feel the energy of those wheels turning away, stewing over the case, when he was supposed to be watching out the window, trying to retrace his steps from two nights ago.

Before Jakes could try to redirect him, Morse asked, “So who is Keith Miller?”

 

Ah, buggar it. What could it hurt, really? Wasn’t as if Morse was going to stop asking and get down to brass tacks if he didn’t get an answer.

 

“Some lunatic who killed his mother with an axe, years and years ago, here in Oxfordshire. He was committed to Bellevue. Dr. Cronyn told us about him.”

“Why? What prompted that?”

“Fancy and Trewlove went round the florist shops with some of those flowers you found in Trill Mill Stream. The lady running one of them said some bloke had been in there, buying out the place, a man by the name of Miller. The old man’s been trying to trace him, see if there might be some connection, if he might be our man.”

“Mmmm,” Morse said. “And what about this party? Strange said there was a party at . . . Bixby’s? That he’d been called in on detail?”

“Yeah, the man must be mad. He says he planned it in commemoration of some posh gala, some art exhibition held a hundred years ago. That the invitations had gone out long ago.”

 

Morse sat bolt upright in his seat.

 

“What exhibition?” he asked.

“I dunno, Morse.”

Morse laughed ruefully. “Not Ernest Gambart’s party?”

“That might have been it, yeah.”

 

Morse was looking thunderstruck at this particularly unremarkable piece of information.

 

“But . . . . but that wasn’t a hundred years ago. That was in May 1866,” Morse snapped.

“Close enough, he figures, I suppose,” Jakes said. “Why? What of it?"

“Ernest Gambart was an art dealer in London who, a little more than a hundred years ago, proclaimed he was throwing the party of the season, revolving around a showing of a painting.  “The Finding the Savior in the Temple,” by William Holman Hunt.”

“Yeah, that’s the to-do Bright mentioned. Mad, eh? To have a party featuring a Pre-Raphaelite painting right in the middle of this mess?”

Morse snorted. “I’d say so. Considering that that party ended in disaster. Gambart hired a theatrical gaslighting expert for the occasion, to set a certain mood for the evening, and to show the large canvas to its full effect. Only someone lit a match, and the place blew sky high.”

Jakes frowned.

“He doesn’t have that painting, does he? Bixby?” Morse asked. “There’s a child in that painting.”

“No, it’s some other one.”

“ _What_ other one?”

“I don’t know, Morse. Jesus. No one at the station thinks it’s a spectacular idea, obviously, but no one can stop some rich bastard from throwing a party. It’s seems awfully dim to me. It’s almost as if he’s begging the killer to come.”

“Mmmmmm,” Morse said.

 

He was silent for a moment.

 

Then he said, "I need to go to Lake Silence." 

 

It was too much.

 

"What the hell do you need to go over there for? That's the one place I thought that you _wouldn't_ need to be taken round. You know that area pretty well, don't you? You would have known if that's where you were.”  

"Yes," Morse conceded.

“Then there’s no need, is there? We’ve got to mark  _someplace_  off the list.”

Morse slumped in his seat and mumbled something under his breath.

“What’s that, Constable?”

“I said “never mind,” Morse said.

 

Damn right.

 

“Now. Right or left?” Jakes asked, pointedly.

“Right,” Morse said, dully.

 

Jakes slowed the big black Jag to a crawl as they approached a fork in the country road.

“Look around, for a moment at least, Morse. It’s not as if you could have gotten far, on that ankle.”

Morse shrugged. “This is nothing. I raced on far worse than this when I ran cross country.”

 

Jakes paused. “You ran cross country?”

 

“Yes, when I was u . . . when I was in school,” Morse said.

 

“Oh, bloody hell,” Jakes cried. 

 

“What?” Morse asked.

 

“You might have gone for miles, then. Isn’t it that mad thing, when you run for miles just for the hell of it? Christ.”

 

Morse said nothing.

 

“Look. Just look around, all right. Try to think.”

 

“I  _am_  trying. But it was all trees and . . . it was dark, wasn’t it?”

 

Morse shook his head and heaved a heavy sigh.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said.

 

“You always say that,” Jakes replied, taking a left, and accelerating on.

 

“Because it’s true,” Morse said.

 

Jakes took another steady drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke out the window.

“It’s not your fault,” he said. “You and Fancy didn’t belong on a case like this to begin with.”

 

Morse winced a bit, and Jakes, too late, realized that Morse must have been told just that, wherever he happened to be, for some time now.

The bloke was most likely running out of spaces to occupy.

 

“It had nothing to do with being on the case,” Morse protested, seeming to rally himself.  “I was asleep, at home when it happened. He pulled me like a sack right out of bed. I thought I was just dreaming.”

 

Jakes felt a muscle in his jaw jump.

 

And of course, he thought that. Of course, he thought it was all a dream.

 

_Angela spun in a circle of sunlight, her brown hair picking up gold and coppery tones, as she tossed dust into the air, magic dust to make all the bad dreams go away.  She was the waft of hope in their dark world, the assurance that it was all a dream, the Wendy to their troop of lost boys._

 

“Yeah, well,” Jakes said, with a shake of his head, as if to toss old memories aside, casting them off with the rustle of the windblown leaves that flew over the windscreen. “If you hadn’t run off to Christ Church without calling for backup first, you may not have gotten so embroiled in this. He might not have set his sights on you. It was you chasing him about there, him stealing that portrait from there, that got him set on you, most likely.”

 

Morse made a disparaging noise. “He had my photograph, from the Oxford Mail, long before that, tucked up in that mirror, remember?” He shuddered. “I certainly do.”

“Well,” Jakes replied. “That’s one thing you remember, then.”

 

Morse slouched in his seat. He was quiet for a long while, not even bothering to look out the window, as if summoning the courage to speak.

 

“At first . . .” he began, at last.

“At first, when I realized where I was, who must have me, I thought …. I didn’t want to see him right away, I didn’t want to give him an excuse to kill me. But I meant not to leave, not to take my chance, without getting a look at him before I left, either. But then… I just... I couldn’t be there. I broke through the window and dropped out ... I didn’t even realize I was on a higher floor until I was falling.” 

 

Jakes nodded. Who could blame Morse, really, for panicking, for just wanting to get the hell out of there, considering his past?

 

“How about here?” Jakes asked. “Anything? Right or left?”

 

Morse looked about through the windscreen hopelessly. “I . . . I just don’t know.”

Jakes smashed out the cigarette in the ashtray. He was going through the whole of them.

 

And that’s when he realized that Morse was right. They were going about this all wrong.

 

Jakes knew how to stay alert. How to get to safety. How to mind his way. How to check his tracks.

 

If their situations were reversed, Jakes was certain he would be able to retrace his steps.

 

But Morse. Morse lived in his mind, not in his body. How often had Jakes come upon him to find him staring out the window, lost in his thoughts?

 

The man had no instincts whatsoever. The entire time he had been running, he had, no doubt, been thinking of something else—of what the man had said, or what he might be able to tell Thursday when he saw him, of how the fact that the wallpaper in the room in which he had been held did not resemble any of that William Morris wallpaper . . . and heavens, what did _that_ mean?

Morse’s mind was not like his own. His thoughts did not travel in a smooth circuit, but rather in fire bursts.

And it was Morse’s mind in which the information they needed was locked.

 

It would be a drudge, it would be a waste of precious time in the short run, but in the long run, it would be for the best. It was property records they needed, scores of old, leather-bound tomes, and maps—they would have to search through the columns, locating abandoned properties, and then go through them, methodically, one by one.

“I think we might as well call it a day,” Jakes said. “Let’s head back to the station.  Might as well pick up Thursday, so I can drop him home, too. Save me from wasting even _more_ time driving around.”

“All right,” Morse said, glumly.

 

He reached his left hand for the radio dial. 

And then, after glancing at Jakes, he let the hand fall away, without turning it on.

********

“Oh, look,” Trewlove said. “There it is. Chipperfield Studios. Your favorite watering hole, by wide report.”

She thought that Fancy might flip his fringe and roll his eyes, but, instead, a cloud seemed to fall over his open face.

“What?” Trewlove asked. “What is it?”

“I dunno. I’ve just been thinking is all. About what you said. About those rumors. I mean, Morse was a little stroppy with ACC Deare, I’ll grant you that. It was enough to make you wince, to be honest. But why should the man have behaved as he did? We meant well. We were only inquiring after a missing girl. Thursday—even Mr. Bright—never would have treated us like that.”

 

Trewlove said nothing, sensing that Fancy was leading up, bit by bit, to some jump— some jump that might prove interesting.

 

“Why say we were drunk? Why make us sound like a pair of idiots? And then . . .”

“What?” Trewlove asked, at once.

“When I was emptying out the contents of Pettifer’s safe, for Thursday, there was a photo of one of the men we met that day. Val Todd. And a check made out to Pettifer by his wife, Muriel Todd.”

“You think Muriel Todd thought her husband was unfaithful. You think . . . perhaps .... Frida?”

“I dunno,” Fancy said. “Could be.”

“But those flowers. . . .”

Fancy shrugged. “Maybe he’s the one behind _all_ of it.”

Trewlove scowled. “But Keith Miller.”

“None of it adds up, does it?” Fancy asked.

“No,” Trewlove said. “It doesn’t. But there’s one way to get a bit of an inkling, at any rate.”

 

And then she veered, suddenly, off of the sidewalk, crossing the road and heading towards the opulent front entrance of the studio, past potted lime trees and twin marble lions that guarded the door.

“We can’t go in there,” Fancy said, catching up to her as she placed her hand on the brass handle of one of the wide glass doors. “We’re supposed to be going round the paint shops.”

“We’re right here. Can’t hurt to stop by.”

“Oh yes, it can,” Fancy said.

Trewlove snorted. “They can say about me what they will. It won’t be anything that hasn’t been said before, most likely.”

Fancy followed, doubtfully in her wake, as she pulled the glass front door open and went inside.

********

“Mrs. Todd?” Trewlove asked a woman who was carrying a clipboard, walking across the patio, away from the where she had been speaking to a group of girls, beside the turquoise pool.

The woman turned, her face impassive, her dark eyes steady, her mouth a firm line of orange-red lipstick.

“Yes,” the woman replied.

“WPC Trewlove, Oxford City Police. We’re here to ask about a cheque that you wrote to a Mr. John Pettifer. For . . .”

 

She turned to Fancy; Fancy had forgotten for a moment, evidently, that she hadn’t seen the cheque.

 

“For thirty guineas,” Fancy supplied. “We know Mr. Pettifer’s bread and butter was divorce work, Mrs. Todd,” he added, pointedly.

“It was silly," she said. "But can you blame me? Surrounded by beautiful young women, who he is, I thought maybe one of the girls had got her claws into him. He’s been a little distant.”

“I was wrong,” she concluded.

 

“Mr. Pettifer told you that?” Trewlove asked.

“Yes,” she said frostily. “I had no reason to doubt him. Now, if that’s all, I’m rather busy at the moment. Quite a few phone calls to make.” 

“That’s all. Thank you,” Trewlove said.

 

Mrs. Todd turned on her heel, then, and with a click of sky blue heels, ones that perfectly matched her midi-dress, she stalked away.

 

“Well. That’s us told,” Fancy said.

“She’s embarrassed, I expect,” Trewlove murmured.

 

“Are you our security detail?” called a man’s voice, from behind them.

Fancy and Trewlove turned to find Val Todd walking out from the pool house.

“Oh,” he said, looking at Fancy, perplexed. “It’s you again.” He huffed a laugh. “Didn’t expect to see you out here again, considering that dressing down you got the last time.”

 

His eyes wavered over to Trewlove; she could feel his assessing gaze, but she refused to look away.

 

“Guess you got a spot of luck,” he said with a chuckle, turning back to Fancy. “What with your old partner getting kidnapped by that lunatic. Looks like you’ve gotten an upgrade.”

 

Trewlove felt a surge of anger; his words were offensive on any number of levels. But she had learned long ago to keep her face a mask of calm professionalism, lest she be seen as “overemotional.”

Fancy, however, had no such compunctions. He looked at the man as if he had never seen anything like him before.

 

The man smoothed his white mustache, a tad nervously, seeming to realize his little joke did not go over well.

“I’m kidding, of course. Besides, I saw in the paper he’s back. All’s well that end’s well, eh?”

“We’re here to ask about a Mr. John Pettifer,” Trewlove said, cutting to the chase.

“Pettifer? Who is that?”

“A private investigator out of London," Trewlove replied. She tilted her head, considering him. "Your wife wrote a cheque to him, did you know? She had her doubts, it seems. About your fidelity. Considering your line of work.”

 

Val Todd laughed incredulously. “Muriel? She’s worth a million of those girls. You know, when I met her, I didn’t have a pot to piss in. Do you know what I was? Entertainments Officer at some two-bob holiday camp, Hastings Grove. But she saw something in me. I’d be nothing without that woman. Why would I trade all that in for some bit of skirt, who’s only interested in what I can do for her?”

“Just as a matter of interest, where were you on the morning of October first?”

He looked a bit stunned for a moment, but then quickly recovered himself. “Ah,” he said. “That day I remember. I was up was in North Oxford. Car show. Bloody pain to organize. Anyone there will vouch for me.”

“And what about on the twenty-eighth of September?”

“That day stands out, too. Had it on the calendar all month. I’d been here, in meetings all afternoon, with the judges of the pageant.”

He pulled a cigar out of his pocket and narrowed his eyes at them. “What’s this all about, exactly?”

“No matter. We’re simply making routine inquires,” Trewlove said, crisply. “Thank you, sir.”

 

“He makes a convincing show,” Trewlove muttered, as they walked away.

“Iron-clad alibi for the day Pettifer took a dive. And for the day Frida died. I guess that’s more than a show, Fancy replied.

“Hmmmmm,” Trewlove said.  

 

“Well, on to Foster’s Paints. Sixth time’s the charm, eh?” Fancy said.

Trewlove shook her head. It seemed as if they had covered the city three times over the past few weeks.

 

But Fancy, it transpired, was right.

The sixth time _was_ the charm.

 

“Oh, yeah. I thought that was odd. Couldn’t decide on a color, what? Six or seven cans,” said the old man working at the register.

“What colors?”

“That’s what’s odd, I’m telling you. There are those who will get three shades of blue to test them out, see what they like the best; but this man had red, blue, green, black, yellow… all over the map, he was.”

“Did you get his name?” Fancy asked.

“Can’t recall it. But I still got the cheque in the register, if you’re interested.”

“Yeah,” Fancy said, at once. “Yeah, we are.”

 

The man hit a lever on the side of the register, and it opened with the ring of a bell.

“Here it is,” he said. He held it out from himself, as if to read it better.

 

“Keith Miller,” he said. “Address in Iffey.”

**********

Thursday led two officers down the hallway of the building, his hand resting on the gun inside his jacket, just in case. Outside, Fancy, Trewlove and three other officers had discreetly begun to circle the perimeter, in case Keith Miller made a run for it, out the window or down a fire escape.

Thursday rapped hard on the door.

“Oxford City Police,” he rumbled.

 

No one answered.

 

He didn’t give whoever might be there a second chance, but rather kicked in the door with a thundering bang, keeping his broad hand fast on the handle of his gun, poised to draw arms at the slightest provocation.

 

But the flat was empty.

 

There was no sign of anyone. It was as neat and orderly and featureless as a showroom in a furniture store. It was as if no one really lived there.

 

The only spark of color and liveliness in the place were three paintings hanging over the mustard-colored sofa. The Blessed Damozel, the one of Ferdinand and the green sprite Ariel, and the one of Millais’ grandson.

Three of the four stolen paintings, all in a row—Angel 1881 being the only one unaccounted for.

Thursday’s dark eyes narrowed as he considered them.

 

So.

Just another game then. A taunt.

_Catch me if you can._

The bastard.

When he caught up with him, Thursday would see to it that he was every kind of sorry.

 

*****

 

As he walked with Morse upstairs and into the offices of the CID, Jakes could not help but miss it—the way Morse paused beside one of the desks, his eyes locked onto the inner-office windows, where his own photo was now taped up to the glass.

Jakes thought again of all of those questions Morse had asked in the car. At the time, he had taken it all as part of Morse’s need to be filled in on everything, his need to maintain his position as a complete know-it-all at all times. 

 

But . . . .  Morse _did_ understand the he was not on the case anymore, didn’t he? That he was a part of it, a victim, and no longer an investigator?

Eh, who the hell was he fooling?

Of course, he didn’t.

For Morse seemed to stiffen at the sight of his photograph, as if he was just now realizing the reality of his situation.

 

But then, his attention was drawn away by something, and Jakes, too, looked up, following his gaze.

It was Mr. Bright, just coming out of his office.

 

“Ah. Sergeant Jakes,” he said. “And Morse. How are we then, today? Better I hope?”

“I’mfine, sir,” Morse said, pointedly, evidently resenting Mr. Bright’s condescending use of the third person.

“Very well. Any luck?”

“No, sir,” Jakes said.

“Ah,” he said. 

 

He turned back toward his office door then, and called to someone inside.

“They’ve just gotten in. Morse is here.”

 

In answer, a second man emerged from the dimmed room. It was Dr. Cronyn, again wearing his standard uniform of the academic—a black turtleneck and tweed jacket.

The doctor greeted them with a curt nod. “Afternoon, gentlemen.”

 

“I’ve just been speaking with Dr. Cronyn,” Mr. Bright said. “And I was thinking perhaps he might talk to you, Morse. See if he might help you.”

 

Morse paused.

 

“Help me, sir?” he asked, uncertainly.  

 

“Dr. Cronyn has been telling me about some research he’s been doing, helping people to unlock certain memories. He might help you to remember where you were the other night, yes?” 

“The mind is a complicated thing,” the doctor explained, stepping forward into the room. “There are things we may have stored in our memories of which we are not consciously aware. Things that we might find difficult to access. But I’ve found, through gentle direction, patients can recover those memories, with just the right push.”

“Yes. So,” Mr. Bright said. “There we are, then.  Perhaps, with Dr. Cronyn’s assistance, you might fill in those blank spaces. Uncover some memory that might help us in our search. Can’t hurt to try. Yes? Morse?”

 

Morse stood stock still, seemingly unsure if Mr. Bright’s words constituted a suggestion or an order.

 

Jakes thought it was a terrible idea. He couldn’t help but remember the faces Morse pulled the day Dr. Cronyn has first come in to speak with them.

 

_“The perpetrator of these crimes clearly exhibits a profoundly disturbed psyche,” Dr. Cronyn announced._

_“Indeed,” Morse noted, with a snort._

 

Was he likely to speak freely, Morse, where he did not trust? 

 

And who could blame him, really? There was something patronizing in their words; it was almost as if they were treating Morse as if there was something wrong with him.

 

Was Mr. Bright cajoling Morse into talking to the psychiatrist in part because of what he, Jakes, had said?

If so, it felt like a betrayal.

 

Sure, Morse had taken a few cheap shots at him, smashed the back of his seat in the Jag, but it was also true that Jakes had long since learned and learned well the power of words, perhaps even better than Morse had, with all of his recitations of Shakespeare.

 

It was also true that Jakes had provoked Morse every time.

 

It was nothing Morse had done, really, that led Jakes to egg him on.

It was seeing that spark of himself in Morse— there, in that awkward and utterly transparent sod—that piece of himself that was once, yes, very much like him.

 

It was incredible to Jakes that after five years in captivity, the man still went about waxing poetic about falling leaves.

Morse was eccentric, and difficult,  and obstinate, it was true—but perhaps he was more clear-eyed and rational, too, then anyone else he knew, especially considering what he had lived through.

 

Jakes, at least, had had the others—Big Pete, Tommy, Angela, Benny. It was hard to imagine what life must have been like for Morse during those five years, alone in that hell with no respite, no sunlit moment of grace, no Big Pete ruffling his hair, no Angela taking his hands in hers and twirling him so fast that his feet left the earth.

_“You’re Peter, you can fly. All the way to the second star on the right and straight on till morning!"_

 

The paintings on Morse’s wall were, indeed, fantastical, but Jakes could well understand the impulse—the wish to have some bright and bold reminder that you were no longer where you once had been. That the past was the past, and you were now somewhere else, somewhere where you were free of it. 

 

Still, that was neither here no there.  The main issue at hand was not a question of Morse’s mental state, nor a question of whether or not it would be possible for him to return to the force when all of this was done— but rather, a question of finding the killer.

 

Morse’s memories, for now, were not his own. If what Dr. Cronyn said was true, if there might be a way to help Morse remember where he had been, they might very well stop a killer in his tracks.

 

But why then did Jakes feel a twinge, that twist, deep in his gut, when Morse turned around and looked at him, before following Dr. Cronyn down the hall toward the interrogation rooms?

 

 *********

 

Endeavour walked in silently and sat down on one side of the long table, already sensing it in the air, the adrenaline already building in his body, already on his guard before the game had even begun.

Gull could smell it, the wariness. He could see it in the wide blue eyes, expanding so as to hold an infinity of universes.

 

Gull had long since given up, resigned himself to an eternity of singular isolation, to remaining forever a darkness without its light, an unstoppable force without its immovable object, _Druj_ without _Asha_ , cosmic chaos without order, counterbalance without balance.

And now, here it sat, right before him, waiting for him to speak.

 

He was in so many ways his opposite, Endeavour.  But he was also the only one who was his equal.

They were two shards, two sharp and keen intelligences, cut from the same soul, dropped alone into this terrible world, one of disappointment and miasma and illusion.

 

And to think, that he had just recently been so preoccupied with the problem of mortality. 

 

Death. It was the one thing, the only thing, stronger than he was. It was impossible, untenable that he might die before he found it, that missing side of himself.

 

As he was, there was no one.

He was alone.

He was hell.

 

But now, everything had changed. Now, he could conquer all, even death. And not simply out of necessity, because he was waiting to find that missing piece of himself. But in triumph, because he had found it. 

 

 

“As I as saying,” Gull said, steepling his fingers, falling naturally into the role of the empathetic psychiatrist.

 

It wasn’t a difficult role to play. He was a student of the mind, after all.

 

“Sometimes the mind holds memories of which our conscious minds are unaware,” he continued. “Sometimes there are things we are afraid to let ourselves know.”

 

Endeavour rolled his eyes, affecting a look of bored contempt.

“Nothing quite so epistemological, I’m afraid,” he replied. “It was dark and I was in a panic.”

 

“Really?” Gull crooned. “It seems as if there are many things in your past, that perhaps you might like to keep buried, forgotten.”

 

There was a flicker there, of uncertainty—did he know, this psychiatrist, of his past? Did he not know? Endeavour wasn’t quite sure.

 

It was perfect, keeping him guessing. Hop, hop, as light as a bird. As swift as a finch on the fencepost.

Until it lands right into the reach of the snare.

 

“It seems as if you lost your mother, when you were quite young,” Gull said

 

And Endeavour’s shoulders relaxed. Gull could almost feel his relief.

_Oh, is that all that he meant?_

 

“Oh. Well. yes. So have many people, I suppose,” he said.

“Are you angry with her?”

Endeavour pursed his mouth. “ _Angry_?”

“For leaving you? It’s quite natural you know, for you to be angry with her, for having left you in such circumstances. It sounds as if your father and stepmother, well . . . .”

 

Again, the glimmer of confusion. What did the man mean? What did he know about him, what did he guess?

 

“It would be quite natural in fact, even if you hated her,” Gull said.

“I don’t  _hate_  my mother,” Endeavour said, sharply.

 

He stood to rise.

"This is rubbish," he said. "You're nothing but a fraud. I'm going now."

 

He had almost made it to the door, when Gull said, "Mr. Bright thought that you might behave in this way."

 

Endeavour turned and scowled. "In what way?"

 

"That you would be . . . less than cooperative. It's a team effort, police work. It's Mr. Bright's opinion that you're too quick to fly off the handle, that you aren't quite up to the task." 

"Of course, I am," Endeavour said. 

"Well, then," Dr. Cronyn said, nodding pointedly to the chair opposite him. "You'll want to show him that you've tried my methods, at least. Won't you?" 

 

Endeavour hesitated for a moment and then returned to his chair, slowly easing himself down, as if every centimeter cost him something. 

 

“Now," Dr. Cronyn said. "It's alright, you know, if you're angry with her. Your mother. I would understand if you were. I, too, lost my mother when I was quite young. It’s difficult, being left alone, isn’t it? And after all, your mother left you with a father who had already moved on in life, who had remarried a woman who resented your presence, your very existence, one might say....”

“Well, I expect I was simply a burden. It was nothing personal.”

“. . . left you with a father who did not even bother looking for you, when you disappeared.”

 

Endeavour went still.

 

Gull was sitting so close to him, so close, just across the table, that he could see the moment of impact, see the pupils dilating, expanding like pools of ink-black in ponds of summer blue.

 

“You read my file,” he said. “Mr. Bright let you read my file.”

 

“Oh, yes. I’ve read your file,” Gull said. He shook his head in commiseration. “Five years. Five lost years.”

 

Endeavour said nothing.

 

“For five years, you lived in your mind. Exclusively in your mind. You must know how to lie to yourself, in order to keep yourself aloft. How to bury things deep, under layers, where you won’t have to look at them. Who on earth would understand? Not many have had an experience like it.”

Endeavour faltered and then seemed to recover himself.

“Have you?” he asked, haughtily.

“Perhaps. Perhaps, I have. You know, I have the idea that we’re very much alike, you and I.”

 

And Gull could see it . . . the trepidation, the caution . . . the odd sensation of realizing that he had heard such words before . . . of not knowing whether or not to fear....if it was just a coincidence, or just his imagination. 

 

“There is side to you that no one sees. Oh, yes, you’re angry, even if you do not know it. But there’s something else, something I don’t understand, but that I want to.”

 “And what’s that?”  Endeavour asked.

 

He was Endeavour, his endeavour—so hopeful a word, but with sharp syllables, sharp edges that cut like stone, that might draw blood, that might remind him he was alive, at last.

 

“After all that you’ve been through, how can you have painted your room as you have? How can you have painted scenes of such liveliness and delicacy, of such pure and haunting beauty?”

 

And another flicker of confusion moved across the pale face. How had he seen his room?

Perhaps, had someone told him of it?

And, sure enough, right on cue...

 

“Did Jakes tell you about that?” Endeavour asked.

“Who is Jakes?” Gull asked, his voice the lull of calm. “Oh. The sergeant? No. No, no, no. I saw them for myself, the paintings.”

 

The question was there, moving, spinning like water in the depths of those blue eyes.

How many people had been in his room, looking for evidence? Had Thursday taken him there, trying to discern some piece of information about the killer? It was possible.

Or . . . could it be?

 

“So,” Gull said, giving him a reassuring smile. “It’s all quite simple, then. If you could keep that memory alive for five years, surely you can remember where you were two nights ago. The memories are there. In your mind.”

 

And the narrow shoulders seemed to sag with relief. They were getting back on track at last. Perhaps his suspicions had been unfounded.

 

Of course they had.

 

As if to reassure himself, Endeavour even attempted a twitch of a wan smile.

 

It was time. He was poised for fight or flight.

 

It was time that Endeavour acknowledged the truth.

It was not the fear of him that had sent Endeavour on that rampage to escape, that frenzy that left streaks of blood on the walls and broken glass on the floor.

It was the realization of what he had done, the terror in being surrounded by his own creation.

They were cut from the same cloth, after all, two opposing and extreme reactions to the same reality, the same understanding.

 

“But your painting . . .” Gull said, drawing nearer, reducing his voice to a whisper. “It's an illusion, you know. It doesn’t exist. As much as you may want it to.”

 

And the wan smile faltered.

 

Gull paused and added, “Now, what you painted for _me_. That’s your masterpiece. _That's_ what’s real.”

 

And then the blood drained from his face, the candle flicker of doubt blooming at once into a flame of fear. 

 

“It was you. It was . . . it’s  . . . it’s you,” Endeaovur managed.

 

Gull stood then and leaned over the table, looking down upon him with all of his complex and byzantine being in his eyes.

“I’m the only one who will ever understand you,” he said. Words that were no longer a threat, but a vow, and they produced the desired effect—as that face, as perfect and as pale as to be cut from marble, a face as old as time immemorial—became a mask of horror.

 

Gull reached forward and pushed a disheveled red-gold wave of hair back from his temple, just as his mother might have done.

 

It was the perfect touch, the softness of tousled curls. And the perfect touch to his design.

 

Because at his touch, something in Endeavour seemed to snap. Five years and two weeks of terror had found its target at last. 

 

He flinched away, violently from his caress, and then his wide blue eyes were looming nearer and nearer.

 

And Endeavour flew across the table and hurled himself at him, falling into him, so that he crashed backwards, and they were two parts of the same whole, together at last. Gull’s head hit the tile floor heavily as he fell, and it was sweet agony, the gentle weight alight on him, the one hand clutching at his shirt, the smell of vanilla and leaves and fresh shaving cream sharp in his nostrils, the crush of that sinewy body as it struggled against his, his first human touch in years.

 

He was shouting, incomprehensibly. “You! It was you!”

 

Endeavour flipped him over, held his hands behind his back with his one good hand, as if he might cuff, him … but with what? He had nothing, of course.

 

“You! You bastard! You _bastard!_ "

 

Gull closed his eyes, the unhinged cries like the music of the spheres.

 

And then he heard the slam of the door thrown open.

 

“Morse!” he heard the Inspector shout.

“Dammit, Morse,” echoed the Sergeant.

 

Gull hoped it would be a while before they managed to stop him. It was quite nice, lying here under the Endeavour’s wrath.

He heard the sounds of a scuffle, of the rustle of fabric like feathers, of a hard smack, as Endeavour struggled against those who tried to restrain him, as he panicked against the net.

 

Let him fight.  The more he struggled, the more tightly he bound his wings in mesh of cutting string; the more he shouted the truth, the less inclined they would be to hear him.

 

It was all he could do not to smile. He forced himself to remain still.

 

“Morse!”

 

“It’s . . . But  . . . It’s. It’s. It’s that man! It's him!" 

 

Endeavour might have a fist clutched tightly around his wrists, but it was Gull who, from here on out, would hold Endeavour like a bird who had lit right into the palm of his hand.

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

In the first instant, Jakes could scarcely believe what he was seeing.

In the second, he wondered why hadn’t seen it coming sooner.

 

It was in that second moment that it all came rushing back to him, the memory of a day long forgotten.  He had been at Mrs. Harrison’s house for two months, when, one morning, he woke up, dressed, combed his hair, and then punched a hole in the plaster of the wall of his new sky-blue bedroom.

He had stood for a moment, horrified at what he had done. Would he be kicked out, sent back to Blenheim Vale? But that couldn’t be. The place was closed, wasn’t it? Shut down? The doors locked and windows boarded?

For a long while he stood, filled with a terror that leached deep into his bones, contemplating the damage. He didn’t move, in fact, until Mrs. Harrison came up the stairs, bringing up a wicker basket full of clean laundry smelling like the sun from having been hung out on a line in the garden the day before. 

 

When she saw the hole, she said nothing. Instead, she simply set the basket down and went back downstairs, returning with a tub of plaster and a trowel, explaining to him that she would show him how to fix it.

Peter did as she asked, followed her instructions, but the entire time that they worked at repairing the wall, he was wracked with confusion. Was this her idea of a punishment?

 

“There,” she said, as Peter smoothed the plaster, with one final swipe of the trowel. “Now you see there’s nothing to it. This way, if you ever want to punch a hole in the wall again, you won’t be so fussed about it. Walls are easily mended, aren’t they?” she said.

 

And then she smiled at him.  

 

At the time, he thought she was a bit mad, albeit delightfully so.

He was too young, really, to realize what she had meant.

That there are other things that might be broken, other than walls. Things that are not so easily mended.

 

Inspector Thursday, Fancy and Trewlove had just come into the nick with news of a break in the case when it all started.  Fancy and Trewlove, it transpired, had managed to uncover the address of Keith Miller, tracking him down with a cheque he had written out to a paint shop.

Officers from the Cowley CID had descended upon the scene, and—although they had missed their man—they had recovered three of the stolen paintings, firmly establishing that they were moving in on the right target at last.

Furthermore, the description they got from Keith Miller’s neighbors matched the one given by Miranda Hoffinger, owner of Miranda’s Gifts and Flowers—a man of medium build, late 40s to early 50s, beard, thick glasses.

They had a name and a description. Here, finally, was something solid to go on.

The man had disappeared, but, surely, he must have fled to his hideout, wherever it was that he had been holding Morse—surely it was now only a matter of time before they nicked him.

 

Thursday was just asking Jakes if he and Morse had had any luck on that score, when, suddenly, he stopped short.

From down the hall, there was a crash, followed by a sickening thud, followed by the rise and fall of distressed and incomprehensible shouting.

 

Thursday turned and strode down the hall at once, and Jakes followed, Trewlove and Fancy not far behind.

The Inspector threw open the door to the dim closet of an interrogation room, painted two-tone in dark forest and pea green.

And immediately bellowed, “Morse!”

 

Morse looked up from where he was crouched on the floor, his eyes wild. The desperate expression on the typically haughty and placid face caught Jakes so by surprise that it took him a moment to register what in the hell was happening.

Dr. Cronyn was there, sprawled out in his neat tweed jacket, face down on the dingy white lino tiles, a small bit of blood congealing at the back of his head, while Morse twisted his arms behind his back, holding the man’s wrists with his one good hand.

“Help me!” he cried. “Give me some . . . .”  

In his panic, Morse seemed to have forgotten the word: instead, he waved his more heavily bandaged hand around as if to mime restraining the man with a pair of handcuffs.

 

“Christ,” Jakes muttered under his breath.

He had always understood that there was something there, simmering under the surface, in Morse’s fidgeting and restless form. But he never would have imagined that Morse would actually _attack_ a middle-aged academic. 

And that was when he realized: He, of all people, should know that sometimes a sea of rage takes time to bubble to the surface of even the stillest of ponds.  

 

“Give me some  . . !” Morse cried out again, holding the man’s hands tight behind his back, giving his shoulders a sharp twist for good measure.  

Thursday said nothing, but only crossed over to where Morse was crouched in two strides, knelt down, and, with gentle and broad hands, took Morse by the shoulders and worked to pull him off the unconscious psychiatrist. The constable cried out in protest; he was like a live wire, possessed of a hidden reserve of sinewy strength, elusive to the old man’s grip. He twisted and struggled so as to keep himself free and to keep a firm hold on the unconscious man, as if Dr. Cronyn was a ravenous and sharp-clawed monster rather than a possibly concussed psychiatrist.

 

“Morse!” Thursday said, seizing his thin shoulders again.  But Morse refused to listen, straining forward to keep hold of the doctor.

“No!” Morse said, pulling away and throwing himself forward, so as to maintain his hold. “Sir! It’s him!”

 

It was clear that Thursday was reluctant to handle Morse too roughly, and his hesitation made his bulk no match for Morse’s wiriness. The old man was like a bull trying to catch careful hold of a blade of grass kicked up by a gust of summer storm.

 

Well. Jakes had no such compunctions. He stepped over the unconscious man, and then stepped behind Morse, jostling the governor aside to grab Morse and haul him off Cronyn’s supine body.

Morse cried out again as Jakes pulled him off, spinning around so that the white fabric of his shirt slipped like water under Jakes’ hands. Then, Morse hauled off and decked him one hard across the jaw.

“Dammit Morse!” Jakes shouted, at the same time that Morse let out a howl of pain. He seemed to have worked himself into such a frenzy that he had reacted instinctively, striking out with what had once been his dominant hand, his injured right one. He crumpled at once, folding himself over the bandaged fist, cradling it against him.

 

“Morse,” Thursday said again, pulling him back up, so that he was looking steadily into his face. “Morse. Look at me now. Look at me.”

Morse, rendered more docile through the pain in his hand, took a sharp breath and looked up, his gas-fire blue eyes locking onto Thursday’s. He was breathing as hard as if he had been running—in the same manner in which he must have been breathing on the night that he had run all the way from an abandoned country house to where County had found him out at Botley Road.

 

“It’s him, it’s him!” Morse panted. His face was white, unnaturally so, his voice spiraling higher and huskier, like a guitar string pulled too tight, as tight as if it was about to snap. "It's that man!"

“No. No, it’s not,” Thursday said, his voice a low and reassuring rumble.  

“It is. It is. It’s that man.”

“Morse. Clive Durrell is dead. He can’t come back. Do you understand?”  

But Morse shook his head. “No. No. It’s him. It’s that man.”

 

“What’s this?” came a sharp voice, suddenly, from the doorway.

Everyone turned at the sound at once, as if a voice from afar had come through the clouds onto a field of battle.

Mr. Bright stood there, in the doorway, the picture of efficiency in his trim blue uniform.

“Thursday,” he said. “Good heavens. What is going on here?”  

 

For a moment, everyone remained where they were, the sun through the Venetian blinds of the one small window casting the scene into a tableaux staged in oddly filtered slots of light: Thursday kneeling on the ground, holding Morse by the shoulders, Jakes nursing his aching jaw, Trewlove and Fancy watching the scene in varying degrees of astonishment, and Mr. Bright’s outside consultant knocked out cold, lying on the floor.

“No,” Morse said, turning back to Thursday. “He’s . . .  he’s that man. He’s the killer.”

 

No one spoke. No one knew quite what to think.

 

“What’s this? Thursday?” Mr. Bright snapped.  

Just then, Dr. Cronyn began to stir, putting forward one hand as if to lift himself up. Fancy stooped over to assist him, taking the man by the shoulders and helping him to sit up. Morse’s face flickered with revulsion, as if he thought Fancy was contaminating himself by going anywhere near to the man.

 

“Doctor? Are you all right?”  Fancy asked.

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine,” Dr. Cronyn said, sitting up, slowly. He blinked, as if collecting himself, and then took a deep breath. “It was just . . . unexpected,” he said.  “We were just talking, when Mr. Morse suddenly became distraught.”

 

Morse tore himself away from Thursday’s grip.

“ _Distraught?_   Of course I’m distraught!  You bastard! It’s him. He’s been hiding in plain sight the whole time. He’s been laughing at us. It was he who killed Alice, and Perez-Lopez and Frida! He who stole those paintings. Where are they?” Morse shouted.  

 

“Morse,” Jakes said, keeping his voice measured and calm. “The paintings have been recovered.”

 

Morse’s head spun toward him with alarming speed. “What?”  

“The paintings have been recovered,” Jakes repeated. “At Keith Miller’s flat.”

 _“Keith Miller!”_ Morse replied, his voice dripping with contempt. “Who is this _Keith_ _Miller_?”

“I told you,” Jakes said. “He’s a man who has killed here in Oxford before. We found the paintings in his flat. Talked with his neighbors. Got his description.”

“What’s he look like, then?” Morse cried.

 

“Morse,” Mr. Bright said, warningly.

 

It was true; it was certainly no way for a police constable to talk to a detective sergeant, but Jakes wasn’t quibbling about that now. The quicker Morse was apprised of the truth of the matter, the more quickly this whole unfortunate episode might blow over.

 

“Middle-aged, dark hair, beard, thick glasses,” Jakes supplied.

Morse snorted at that. “It’s all a fake! A ruse! It sounds like a costume that might be bought at any Woolworth’s!”

Jakes scowled. “And just for yuks, he had fake copies made of three of the paintings that happened to have been stolen, then?”  

 

Morse faltered for a moment. “He .... _he_ hid them there!” he shouted then, turning back to Dr. Cronyn. “It was him! He knew all about my paintings! He was in my room!”

 

“I told him about your paintings, Morse,” Mr. Bright said, evenly.

 

Morse’s eyes snapped up then, to Mr. Bright. _“You!_   Why would you tell him about that?” Morse cried.

“Morse. Remember who you are speaking to,” Jakes said.

“Has he confessed? Has this Keith Miller confessed?” Morse asked.

“We haven’t found him yet, lad,” Thursday said.  

“Nor will you. He doesn’t exist,” Morse said. “ _He's_ masterminded all of this. It’s all a game!”

 

“Morse,” Jakes said, trying again. “Do you remember when we went out to Trill Mill Stream? Once Frida Yelland’s body was discovered?”

“Yes,” Morse said, tersely.

“Dr. DeBryn had said that she had been dead only around two hours.”

“Yes.”

“Well, Dr. Cronyn had been with us the whole morning, hadn’t he? How could he have killed Frida Yelland, when he was talking to us here?”

 

Morse faltered again for a moment, looking uncertain.

“He . . . he didn’t kill Frida, then. Her murder is a separate case, the one obscuring the other. There was never any painting stolen. ‘Ophelia’ is still at the Tate.”

 

“What’s this?” Thursday said, incredulously. “It was you who was so set on the murders being connected. You who found the flowers. What were those flowers about, then?”

“ _He_ was there,” Morse blurted, looking again at Dr. Cronyn. “ _He_ was there when I said that about the flowers. He came back and planted them later. So that I would find them.”

“Why? To what end?” Thursday asked.

“To confuse me. To twist me all about!”

 

"Morse," Mr. Bright said, quietly.  "A man should be big enough to admit when he is wrong." 

"But I'm _not_ wrong," Morse cried. "I'm _not!_ " 

 

Dr. Cronyn, in the meanwhile, had slowly risen to his feet, brushing off his coat, looking the picture of calm and composure.

“Paranoid delusions are par the course for this sort of psychosis, I’m afraid,” he said with a shrug.

“ _Psychosis_?” Morse cried. “You lying bastard! You’re mad! You’re mad!”

 

Dr. Cronyn gave him a sympathetic look. Jakes was not exactly Morse’s biggest fan, but he couldn’t help feeling sorry for the bloke. The doctor didn’t have to say anything at all in answer. It was Morse, after all, who was on the floor screaming bloody murder.

 

“I won’t be pressing charges, of course,” Dr. Cronyn said.

 

“Pressing _charges_ ….?” Morse shouted. “ _You_ pressing charges against _me_?”

 

“It’s my understanding that the young man has just been released from hospital this morning. I suspect it’s all been a bit much for him, being asked to help on the case with the trauma of a second abduction still so fresh in his mind,” Dr. Cronyn said.

“Oh, yes, you know all about that, don’t you? You bastard! You knew all! You left me in that closet on purpose!”

“I won’t be pressing charges,” Dr. Cronyn said, stiffly, projecting his voice over Morse’s shouts. “But, in lieu of what’s happened today, I really must insist that Mr. Morse be submitted to a full evaluation, both for his own sake and for the safety of others. The man is obviously a danger to himself,” he said, nodding pointedly at Morse’s hand, which was now bleeding through the bandage. “And I’m sure Chief Constable Standish will agree.”

“Yes, yes,” Mr. Bright said. “Quite right.”

“In fact, I have an appointment open first thing in the morning at my office at Bellevue,” Dr. Cronyn said. 

 

Morse let out another cry of protest when Thursday cut him a look. 

 

“See here now," Thursday said. “Considering Morse’s feelings on the subject, I'd say someone more objective might suit better, wouldn't you?”

Dr. Cronyn smiled at Thursday in sympathy.

"I understand that you mean well, Inspector, that you are trying to help. But believe me, in cases like this, it's better not to indulge in these sort of delusions."

Thursday was clearly about to say more when the doctor sighed, magnanimously. “But, yes, under the circumstances, if it would make you feel better, I'm sure that can be arranged. My colleague, Dr. Gull, should be available." 

 

Thursday said nothing. “Fair enough,” he said, at last, his face impassive “PC Morse needs to pass his exam before he comes back on duty, any road.”

 

Morse looked at him, his face a scowl of confusion.

 

“And perhaps,” Thursday added, “In a similar spirit, Dr. Cronyn wouldn’t mind stepping into my office for a moment. Provide an accounting of his movements for the past few weeks.”

 

A flicker of hope lit Morse’s face, then. It was as if his entire being sagged under Thursday’s hands in relief, as if he couldn’t believe someone might take his side, after all.

 

“Thursday,” Mr. Bright said—and the rasping word was an expression of astonishment and of reprimand all in one.  

 

Thursday merely shrugged, his dark eyes steady. 

 

“Of course,” Dr. Cronyn said. “If it will help to ease this young man’s mind, I will be happy to comply. Should be easy enough. I was largely at my mother’s house. In Peterborough.”

 

“You said you lost your mother. You said she was dead,” Morse snapped.

 

“No,” Dr. Cronyn said, sadly. “That was _your_ mother we were speaking of, Mr. Morse.”  

 

He looked up at them all, then, his eyes filled with compassion. “Poor boy. I think that might have set him off a bit. I’ve seen it quite a bit, in my practice. Patients who’ve lost a parent in that dreamlike time of early adolescence. Sometimes, they begin to build a fantasy world, in which they prefer to remain. Or feel guilt when they find themselves resenting the parent for having abandoned them.”

“I don’t _resent_ my mother,” Morse shouted.

“Yes, yes, Mr. Morse. So you’ve said,” Dr. Cronyn said. “But it’s all right, you know, to admit your feelings to yourself, at least.”

 

It must have been something in his dismissive air that set Morse off, or perhaps it was the mention of his mother, because, suddenly, he lurched up off the floor, out of the old man’s grip, and sprung at the doctor with a wild and impatient cry.

 

“Morse!” Thursday shouted.

 

Dr. Cronyn, this time, was prepared for him, moving faster than even Fancy, who was standing right beside him, could manage. Right at the moment Morse’s hands went to close around his throat, the doctor pulled a syringe out of his jacket, reached around and jabbed Morse through the thin fabric of his cheap shirt, somewhere between his upper left arm and shoulder.

Morse froze for a moment, looking into the man’s eyes in frenzied disbelief. Then the big blue eyes rolled back, and his knees buckled, and Thursday rushed forward and caught him, right before he folded down onto the graying lino-tiled floor.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter chapter than usual, I know, but I had the most grueling week at work ever and wanted to post something on this at least once each week. From here on out, I'll probably be posting shorter but more frequent chapters, because from here on out, the action is going to be fairly fast-paced, with different characters working on different threads of the case at once, before it all converges--so I just think it will be easier that way. 
> 
> Thank you so much as always for reading!


	13. Chapter 13

 

“Fred?” Win called, as soon as Thursday lumbered in through the front door, closing it gently behind him. “Morse?”

She came around the corner and into the narrow hall then, wiping her hands on a tea towel, just as he was hanging his hat on the dark wooden hall stand.

Then she stopped short. 

 

“Where’s Morse?” she asked.

“Back at hospital,” he said, tersely.  

“What?” she asked. “Why? What’s happened?”

“He busted up his hand again.”

“What? How?”

 

Thursday only shook his head. He didn’t want to tell her that he had damaged it by smashing it against Sergeant Jakes’ face.

Nor did he want to tell her that Morse wasn’t back at Cowley General.

 

“It was an accident,” he said.

 “An  _accident_?” Win said, incredulously, with a breath of a laugh. 

“Yes. Just a  . . . a tuffle with Sergeant Jakes.”

“Oh,” she said.

Her shoulders dropped then, the tension draining from her face, and she sighed, as if to say  _boys will be boys._

 

“He’ll be alright,” Thursday assured her. “I’m picking him up in the morning. At eleven.”

 

At eleven—it had become a sort of mantra with him, the words playing over and over in his head. He’d be picking Morse up at eleven.

Because couldn’t bring himself to imagine the alternative.

 

Christ, he could use a Scotch. What a bloody awful day.

 

He shrugged off his coat and hung it on a peg beside his hat and then made his way down the hall and into the oven-warmed kitchen. Win followed, a hint of a question rekindling in her solemn eyes, put there, no doubt, by his own mulish expression.

She was a copper’s wife, with a copper's wife’s instincts—and she seemed to know she was getting a varnished version of the truth. 

 

But how could he tell her? It had been awful, all of it: Morse lying there on the dingy linoleum floor, limp as a rag doll in his arms, looking pale and peaceful and stupidly young, not at all the unpredictable live wire he had been just moments before the doctor had jabbed him with a needle, just moments before he had cried out in surprise and crumpled to the ground.

 

But that wasn’t the worst.

 

The worst was that it all his, Thursday's, fault.

 

Morse should never have been involved in such a harrowing case; the lad wasn’t ready for it, that was all.

Thursday had known that many at the station—not the least of which was Mr. Bright—weren’t keen on Morse joining the force, that many doubted that Morse had a place amongst them.

The case of a killer who stole nineteenth-century paintings as a prelude to murder seemed like it might prove to be the perfect testing ground for Morse—what with all of his specialist’s knowledge. A case that might give the lad a chance to shine, a puzzle bound to play to his strengths.

 

Instead, it had all backfired.

Spectacularly so.

 

Although God only knew Morse certainly hadn’t done himself any favors. What had possessed the lad? What had sent him spinning right over the edge? What had driven him to fly at the man as if he had gone half-wild?

 

Thursday, it was true, wasn’t one to cast stones—it wasn’t as if he hadn’t gotten a bit rough with a few yobs at Teddy Lander’s garage or at Eddie Nero’s boxing club. It wasn’t as if he was above using his fists when his patience ran out.

But Morse certainly did pick a fine time to follow his poor example, having a go at a man right at the station, right before an audience, targeting a consultant of all people, a middle-aged academic, and one brought in specially by Mr. Bright to boot.

The lad did beat all.

 

But yet, had it truly been necessary to drug him, to knock him out like a charging rhino at a safari park?

Morse had made his intentions perfectly clear—he had all but had his clumsy and bandaged hands right at Dr. Cronyn’s throat—but he was a lightweight, really, and what’s more, he’d been surrounded by coppers who were ready and willing to subdue him before he could do any real harm.

 

It didn’t sit right.

 

Thursday reached up into a high cupboard over the stove where he kept his liquor, a storage place that was a holdover from the days when Joan and Sam were children and he had wanted to be sure to keep it out of their reach. He took a bottle and went to stand in a semi-clandestine corner of the kitchen, by a small window decked with a lace curtain, and poured himself a glass of whiskey.

Win said nothing, stirring instead some stew she had simmering in a pot, seemingly content to give him a moment— but, at the same time, he could sense the question in the air. She would give him time before demanding the full story, but she would demand it all the same.

 

But how could he explain, when he didn’t quite understand what had happened himself?

 

“What the hell?” Thursday had shouted, grabbing hold of Morse as he toppled where he stood, easing his sagging form— suddenly all coltish arms and legs—down to the floor.

The Inspector crouched down beside Morse, cradling the back of the lad’s skull so that it rested on his knee, and looked up, fiercely.

 

Dr. Cronyn only shook his head sadly in reply.

 

“It’s not a pretty thing,” he said heavily, “but it’s something we must resort to at times, I’m afraid. It’s for his own protection. He’s a danger to himself in that state. I’ve seen it before. And that hand looks damaged enough as it is.”

Thursday picked up Morse’s hand from where it lay, dropped beside him carelessly on the floor, and moved it so that it was resting on his stomach, tidying up the sprawling limbs, unconsciously arranging the constable so that it looked as if he was merely sleeping, rather than knocked out cold, as if that might somehow make the whole episode less appalling.

 

But as he lay the hand down, Thursday found that he had to admit: Cronyn did have a point. It was true, Morse’s hand looked a mess, bleeding bright scarlet through the tattered white wrappings, soaking the white to red. Morse couldn’t afford further injury to it, really. He had barely passed the physical to join the force because of it as it was—the fact that he had converted to being a lefty and had managed to fly through the range test with flying colors, doing better than many candidates with full mobility in both hands—being what tipped him over.

 

Perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps it was better if Morse slept it off, got whatever bee that had gotten into his bonnet out of his system, before he made matters worse for himself.

 

Yet, something was off; Thursday felt it. It was odd: all the while that they waited for the ambulance, Dr. Cronyn had seemed so well-intentioned, so empathetic—even apologetic, as if he was sorry it had to come to this. 

But all of the doctor’s contrite and professionally compassionate manner wasn’t enough to erase the image in Thursday’s mind of Morse being gathered up by a team of orderlies and hauled out on a stretcher, like an animal sedated to be tagged and released. Not to mention the fact that such a public spectacle was the very last thing the lad needed, what with all of those curious PCs huddled in the doorway, as Morse was carted past.

 

Christ.

What a disaster.

 

Thursday drained the rest of his glass and set it smartly on the counter. Then he poured another quarter-tumbler full.

 

Perhaps he was angry at Cronyn because it was easier than admitting how angry he was with himself. He shouldn’t have had Morse go round with Jakes, when he was fresh out of hospital. Dr. Cronyn had a point, there, too. It was too much, too soon. He should have let Morse stay home and listen to his records for a day, to at least let him have a night’s sleep in his own bed.

If he, indeed, even wanted to sleep there, considering the last time he was in his room, he’d been taken from it.

 

Hmmmmmm.

 

Thursday glowered and took another sip.

 

It had seemed so important at the time, for them to follow up on that lead while it was fresh, to try to find the house where Morse had been kept—but look—now they were on the trail of Keith Miller without Morse’s help. In the end, it was good old-fashioned leg work, Fancy and Trewlove tracking down that cheque—not Morse’s elaborate lectures on Pre-Raphaelite art—that had led to a break in the case.

Although it was Morse who thought of flowers, who started them off on Keith Miller’s trail to begin with.

 

He took another sweet and burning sip of Scotch and looked out the window, out into the falling darkness.

 

Perhaps someone at Bellevue  _could_ help Morse. After all, it was clear from the desperate cries, from the wild and wide gas-fire blue eyes, that Morse wasn’t right. That something inside of Morse had gone terribly off track.

Maybe the lad  _did_ need to talk to someone, to sort through his past, to try to make sense of what had happened to him, now twice-over.

 

In Thursday’s experience, it was better simply to let time heal all things, to let it all recede in the rear-view mirror.

But then, what need did Thursday have to talk to anyone about his past? There was an entire  _generation_  of men who knew precisely what he had gone through, who understood exactly what had happened, without him needing to say a word.

Sometimes, all that was necessary was an exchange of place names, of divisions, for that connection, that sense of identification—even of support—to be made.

 

_“South Pacific. Fourth Infantry Division.”_

_“Italy. North Africa.”_

 

But Morse had been quite alone, hadn’t he?

Although that wasn’t quite so, either. He had  _them_  to talk to now, him and Win and Joan and Sam and . . . . well . . . . all right.

Tony.

 

Thursday snorted and drained his glass a second time, setting it smartly on the counter.

 

“Well,” Win said, at last. “After tea, I’ll wrap a bit up and we can take it to Morse. Or perhaps he’d like another sandwich. He said that was easier to eat, what with his hands bandaged up.”

  
“Hmmmm,” Thursday hummed, noncommittally, looking into the bottom of his empty tumbler, tracing with his eyes the sunburst pattern of the cut glass, gathering his thoughts.

 

He would have to tell her. But how could he tell her in a way that would reassure her, when he himself felt anything but reassured?

 

What  _was_  it about Dr. Cronyn that didn’t sit right?

 

Because despite his sympathetic eyes and contrite professional manner, the psychiatrist was annoying as hell.

 

All the while that Thursday was on the phone to the Peterborough police, checking up on the man’s alibi, Dr. Cronyn sat there, the picture of patience and understanding. As if his only concern was for Morse, as if he cared only to clear himself of all doubt so as to help “that unfortunate young man.”  

When the Peterborough police phoned back, letting him know that Dr. Cronyn’s story checked out, that his mother and a few of her neighbors had attested he’d been visiting her there, Thursday was almost disappointed, even though he wasn’t surprised.

He would have liked to have had the excuse to question the doctor further, to push for more details, but it was a difficult call. It was lucky, really, he wasn’t pressing charges, considering the man had a gash on the back of his head from where Morse had knocked him to the floor.

 

“It’s all perfectly understandable, that you would be concerned,” Dr. Cronyn had said, in that voice that was meant to be soothing, but managed still to grate on Thursday’s nerves. “You being a police officer. I understand that you’ve taken a special interest in Constable Morse. That he’s lodging at your house?”

“Yes,” Thursday said. “He is.”

Dr. Cronyn tilted his head. “Why is that, do you think? That you’ve chosen to take such an unlikely candidate—many might say—for the force, under your wing, into your home?”

“Lad didn’t have anywhere better. The place suited him,” Thursday said, shortly.

“I’ve noticed many men in professions like yours,” Dr. Cronyn continued, “police officers, firefighters, medics—have a drive to help the underdog, to intervene in what some might call ‘hopeless cases,’ _to save people,_ if you will. Often, they are trying to overcompensate, to make it up to someone they feel they have failed in the past. Do you have someone such as that, Inspector? Someone you couldn’t save?”

 

Well. Hell if he was going to tell a perfect stranger about Mickey Carter. And besides. It was rubbish. It was difficult to imagine two men more different, really, than Morse and Mickey Carter. He was clear in his mind as to who was who, thank you very much.

 

There.

 

That was it.

 

The worm in his gut. The twist of the knife.

 

Because how had Dr. Cronyn gotten it all turned around to be about  _him?_

 

That, then, was what most likely pushed Morse beyond endurance. After all, he’d been a party to that sort of game before, hadn’t he?

 

Suddenly, he could imagine a younger Morse, in his first weeks of working out an array of algorithms on a white wall, dressed in an army uniform.

 

“ _Mr. Durrell? I was wondering . . . When can I take leave?”_

_“Leave? Of course, there’s no leave on an assignment like this, Private Morse. Do you think the Reds are taking leave?”_

“ _No,” Morse said._

“ _There you go, then. Enough questions. The less talk from you the better, come to think of it.”_

 

 

“Did you bring the car home, Fred?” Win asked.

Thursday started, thrown out of his reverie.

“Why?” he asked. 

“ _Why?"_ she replied, looking at him as if he was hopelessly behind the times. “So we can bring tea to Morse at Cowley General.”

 

“He’s not at Cowley General,” Thursday said. “We can’t visit him.”

 

“Why ever not? Where is he?” she asked. And this time her question brooked no argument, made it clear she would tolerate no more soft evasions.

 

Thursday took a deep breath.

“He’s at Bellevue.”

 

“ _What?”_ Win cried.

 

“What’s ‘what?’” Sam asked, poking his head into the kitchen. “What’s going on? Is tea nearly ready? Where’s Morse, anyway?”

 

Thursday could scarcely refrain from rolling his eyes. A fine time it was for Sam to come strolling in.

 

“Why is he at Bellevue?” Win cried.  

 

“He . . . well . . .”

And how else to say it?

“He attacked a psychiatrist,” Thursday said.

 

Sam burst out laughing. Thursday looked at him and glowered.

 

Suddenly, the smile faded from Sam’s face. “You’re not joking,” he said.

 

“But,” Win said, looking perplexed, _“But why?”_

Thursday sighed heavily. “Mr. Bright had brought a psychiatrist in, down at the station, to give us input on a suspect in a case.”

“Is this that mad art killer in the papers?” Sam asked. 

“Yes, Sam. The mad art killer. Evidently, this psychiatrist thought he might be able to help Morse to remember where he was the other night. And … I don’t know what happened. They were talking in one of the interrogation rooms and suddenly there was a crash and shouting, and when I went in there, Morse . . .”

He bent his head, rubbed his tired his eyes with his thumb and index finger, and shrugged. He didn’t want to tell them of how he had found Morse on the floor, yelling incomprehensibly, his face pale and eyes wide, gesturing wildly for a pair of handcuffs.

 

 

“I don't believe it,” Win said. “Why would Morse do such a thing?” 

“I dunno,” Thursday said wearily, trying to think back, trying to pick up the ends of Cronyn and Morse's conversation.

“Maybe it was his mother," he said, at last. "Maybe it was because the man started in on him about his mother, how he must resent her for having left him when he was young and all that rot. He never does seem to talk about her much. Maybe it upset him. I dunno.”

“Well, that’s rubbish,” Win said. “He talks to me about her all the time.”

 

Thursday moved his hand away then and looked up. “What’s this? When?”

 

“A few times," Win said. “About how he got his name. About how she liked to bake at Christmas. About how she bought him a sled.”

“He’s told me about her, too,” Sam said. “When I had a bad day at the office, everyone wanting something else from me at once. He told me that his mother always said when you felt that way you should sit quietly and ‘still your mind.’”

 

“Hmmm,” Thursday said.

It occurred to him, then, that, although he spent the most time with Morse, it was his wife and children who knew him perhaps better than he did.

 

And why should that be surprising? Morse was a man who he had trusted with his family, after all, a part of the Lonsdale Massacre case that he had allowed behind the hall stand, the first time he had done such a thing in twenty-five years of coppering.  

 

“Well, you aren’t going to let this happen, are you, Dad? I mean, Morse is a crackpot, yeah, but he’s all right. I mean he’s our crackpot,” Sam said. “Isn’t he?”

“It’s just until the morning,” Thursday said. “He’d been abducted, missing nearly two weeks. He’d have to pass a psychological evaluation before getting back on duty at any rate. This way he’ll get that done and get his hand tended to at the same time. I’m picking him up at eleven once it’s all over.” 

 

Win and Sam exchanged uncertain looks. Thursday turned away.  

 

He was picking Morse up at eleven.

That was that.

The lad would sleep it off, and, in the morning, he would think the better of what he had done. He would answer their questions properly and clear up this whole misunderstanding. It was too much, too soon, that was all. And then Thursday would pick him up and that would be that. It would all recede in the rear-view mirror, and the incident would be forgotten.

No harm, no foul.

 

Why was it, then, that all through their silent tea, one punctuated only be the sound of the clink of silverware, he felt as if they were all looking at him expectantly—Joan and Sam and even Win?

Why was it that the charged space of white wallpaper decked with trios of gold flowers, that charged space where Morse should have been sitting, seemed to him as a quiet reprimand?

 

The answer was simple. He was a father. The father of the family. And, as such, they expected him to make everything right.  

Just as he expected it of himself. 

 

Suddenly, Thursday was reminded of a day not long after they had first moved to Oxford, when he and Win had taken the kids to the nearby park for the first time. Joan and Sam had run until their lungs might burst—it was a paradise for the kiddies, green as far as they could run, much further even, all the way to the line of trees. And beyond the trees soared a skyline of gothic towers and domes and spires as beautiful as a scene right out of a fairy tale.

The air was clear and crisp and autumn blue, fresh and far away from the smog of fug of London, and the children’s laughter rang on the wind like the warbling of birdsong.

Until Joan’s shout.

“Daddy!” she called.

He had made his way over to her quickly enough, wondering what was the matter. It didn’t seem as if she had fallen or scraped her knees.

 

When he approached, he saw that, at her feet, was a bird’s nest full of broken eggs, one that had been raided by a raven or had tipped over in the wind.

She turned and looked up at him with big eyes full of trust. “Can you mend them, Daddy?”

 

Thursday sighed at the memory. Sometimes they thought too much of him, as if he could do anything, work magic. When in reality, he was naught but a meat and two veg copper. When it came to the system, all too often he was just another cog in the wheel.

 

*********

It was in the early hours of the morning, and Thursday had finally managed to drift off to sleep, when the call came in.

“Sir,” Constable Strange said. “You have to see this.”

********

 

Jakes and Thursday met Constable Strange in front of the wide steps of the Ashmolean and then followed him up silently, past the four towering ionic columns, and in through the high front door.

Mr. Copley-Barnes was there, in the lobby, with the unfortunate night watchman who had been clubbed over the head on the night that the painting depicting Ferdinand and Ariel from Shakespeare’s _The Tempest_ had been stolen.

It felt, suddenly, as if they were going in circles. Or rather that everything was going downhill. For on their last visit, Morse had been with them, acting as their consultant. And now he and Jakes and Strange made their way through the hallways and jewel-toned rooms as three coppers alone, all three of them town in a world of gown, without their lanky guide to bridge the gap, to return Copley-Barnes’ haughty glances look for look.  

The curator led them at last into a sapphire blue room, spaced with lit canvases, some as immense as automobiles, some the size of a dress box. They had barely begun to cross the threshold when Thursday noticed it: a pungent reek of oil and acid, a burning chemical smell of melted paint, one that stung his nose with each inhale, forcing him to breath shallowly through his mouth.

Copley-Barnes scowled and gestured over to a far wall, even though no such indication was necessary. A canvas in the corner had been reduced to a surreal swirl of running pigment; it was as if the thing had dissolved entirely, paint running down the wall in an oozing mess of carnage, bleeding onto the shining wood floor.

 

“It’s as if someone’s thrown some sort of acid on it,” Jakes said.

“What was it?” Thursday asked. “The painting?”

“It was a portrait. Of George Stephens,” Copley-Barnes said, with an irritated sniff.  “By William Holman Hunt.”

“A _portrait?”_ Thursday asked, sharply. 

 

Such violence done to an image of a man, Thursday thought, must certainly bode ill.

 

“Do you have a catalog, so we can see what it looked like?” he asked.

 

Copley-Barnes nodded and held out a glossy, soft-covered book, already opened to the correct page.

 

The portrait was of a middle-aged man with brushed back auburn hair and a smooth, expressionless face.

For a moment, he and Jakes considered the image in silence.

 

“Sort of resembles Dr. Cronyn. Doesn’t it?” Jakes asked at last.

 

Thursday looked up, sharply. It did in fact.

 

It had been a savage way to destroy a painting. Might that act of violence be only the forerunner to something else?

 

He glanced at Jakes in silent consolation, and he could tell at once by the look in Jakes’ deep-set eyes that he was thinking along the same lines.

 

**********

They had pulled only one block away from the Ashmolean when the call came in on the car radio, confirming their suspicions.

“Sir. A body’s been found over in North Oxford. It’s quite grisly, evidently. Dr. DeBryn is already on his way.”

“What’s the address?” Thursday asked.

“It’s at the private offices of a psychiatrist. Of Dr. Daniel Cronyn.”

 

*********

As soon as Thursday entered the room, he smelled it: a sharp scent of chemical and decay and rot. He put a broad hand to his face in an attempt to mask it, but there was no point; this smell would be bound to permeate the fine office—orderly and bright from the morning light in the tall windows—for weeks to come.

The scene was a macabre one, to be sure. The man … or what was left of the man…. had been tied down to a settee, a bottle of what must have been acid tipped on a bookshelf stepladder, poised to pour directly over his head.

 

 “I’d advise you to stand well clear, Inspector,” Dr. DeBryn said. “Until we can get it safely stoppered.”

“Acid, was it?” Thursday asked.

“Aqua regia by the smell. Royal water. Nitro-hydrochloric acid. Hence the state of him,” Dr. DeBryn explained. “From the green tinge, the container was sealed with a brass bung. Acid would’ve eaten through it in about an hour. And poured onto his head.”

Thursday couldn’t help but cringe at the thought of it. He had seen a lot, God only knew, but this was pure deviousness, through and through.

 

 “What?” Jakes asked. “Do you think Keith Miller was angry, that he knew that Dr. Cronyn had Morse locked away? Maybe he’s trying to get Morse back, Miller. He did keep that painting, the one that looked like him. That ‘Angel 1881’ thing. Maybe Miller wanted to get to Morse, and saw Cronyn as standing in his way?”  

Thursday frowned and glanced over at a porcelain clock, painted with yellow roses, that sat on the fireplace mantel.

Quarter past ten.

Close enough.

“I don’t know,” Thursday said, slowly. “But I think it’s about time we go to collect Morse.”

This was pure devilishness, this baroque means of murder. Thursday could understand a sudden act of passion, of hate, or revenge. But this. This was something new.

He would not feel right until he had Morse back his in sight.

 

Jakes nodded, as if he understood.

“Sir,” he said.

********

 

Morse woke up in a world of white. A white that was at once piercing and gentle, at once confusing and all too familiar, painfully so. He felt heavy, too heavy even to lift his head from the pillow of the bed on which he lay, and, at the same time, unbearably light, as if he was drifting—a sinking and sickening paradox that left him utterly disoriented.

All he could do was to close his eyes against the white, and float there where he was, a lead weight somehow supported by a faint mist of clouds. He knew he ought to be afraid, but he wasn’t. He was beyond the world and he was beyond caring. He was far away from everything— even far away from himself—roiling with an odd sense of disassociation that left him paralyzed.

No.

That left him scrambling for something solid to cling on to.

It was all wrong.

 

He took a sharp breath.

And slowly, he sat up.

 

He was lying in a narrow white bed, wearing a pair of light blue, loose pajamas—hospital issue clothes—his right hand freshly bandaged, the fingertips of his left wrapped in small strips of linen, protecting the skin that had been shredded and torn as he had made his frantic escape, as he had pried loose the rough wood from the window in that room with the yellow wallpaper.

It had not, then, been a dream.

 

Where was he? In hospital?

 

He looked around the room, trying to gain his bearings. There were no windows—only twin tubes of light on the ceiling, buzzing and humming with a relentless florescent brightness, emitting pulses that shot through his eyes like nails.

He looked away, turning instead to search his pocket for the linden leaf, for that piece of comforting familiarity in an unfamiliar world, but it was not there. Of course. It was in the pocket of his own pajamas, in his suitcase back at home.

Because he  _had_  been home, for a few hours, and then . . .

And then . . . .

Morse groaned and covered his face with his hands. Suddenly, he realized why his right hand should ache again so. It was the hand he had used when Jakes had seized him by the shoulders . . . when he had decked Jakes hard across the jaw.

Oh, god.

But why had Jakes crept up behind him so? Why would he grab him, just as that man had grabbed him off the sidewalk, when it was Cronyn who needed securing and . . .  

And . . . .

 . . . . And no one had believed him, that was why. Only Thursday had seemed willing at least to check into the man’s alibi, to try to see his side of things.

Morse groaned again. What had he done? And the guttural panic, and the flash of realization, and he would never let it happen again as it had happened before, and he wasn’t silent, and he wasn’t a shadow, and he wasn’t an automaton, and he wasn’t something malleable to be bent to another’s will. He was Constable Morse, and he had even a . . .  family . . . of sorts . . . and . . . he had thought . . . friends . . . possibly . . . and he  _did_  have a space of his own and . . .

 

Where was he, exactly?

 

He wasn’t certain, but his head, at least, was feeling clearer by the moment. He swung his legs off of the bed and stood up, his bare feet cold on the white tile; then he crossed the room to the door. To the door with one high, small square window with four parallel bars on it.  

 _Bars_ on it?

What in the . . . ?

Was he in _prison?_ For assault? Because hadn’t he…..?

 

He put his left hand to his forehead and groaned at the memory.

Oh god.

But it wasn’t fair. He was  _right_ , whatever Mr. Bright might have said about a man having the grace to admit when he was wrong. It had been Cronyn all along. It should be Cronyn here, not him.

 

And then the thought struck him, as clear as the ringing of a church bell on a frost-filled morning.

 

It was not just himself he needed to worry about. As long as he was here and Cronyn out there, as long as the killer kept ahead of him in whatever game it was they were playing, the man might kill again.

 

Morse went up to the door, and lifted himself up slightly onto his toes, so that he might look out of the small window. All was early morning silent, and then, suddenly, it started: a desolate wailing, echoing forlornly from down the hall. The sound rose and fell and spun, punctuated at last by the sound of steady footfalls. A bulky man in white scrubs, dressed more like a hospital orderly than a prison guard, emerged from around the corner, his footsteps sounding sharply, staccato claps amidst the spiraling cries.

“Shut up, you,” the man shouted. “Keep a lid on it for once.”

 

Morse frowned. Was this a hospital or a prison or . . . ?

 

And then he spun around, ducked away from the barred window as his breath caught high in his throat. It was Bellevue. He was in Bellevue.

And it all came back in a rush, how he had flown at Cronyn, how he had stiffened at the stinging jab in his arm . . .   and they . . . they thought he was mad. And they had taken him here. And they had left him here. Here in a white room with the wails and the shadows of angled bars that fell on the walls like skeletal sevens and . . .

 

He stumbled, backing away from the door as if there was a fire behind it.

And . . .

 

No.

 

It would be all right.

Inspector Thursday would not leave him here. He knew that he wouldn’t.  

 

He remembered, now: Thursday had insisted that he be allowed to talk to someone else, someone objective, someone who might clear up this misunderstanding.

 

Someone who wasn’t a vicious psychopath.

 

He would be able to explain and . . . . pass his evaluation . . .  and Thursday and Jakes would pick him up in the black Jag and . . .

 

And of course, they wouldn’t.

Of course he would never be released from here.

Because of course Dr. Cronyn had lied to Thursday. Of course it would be Dr. Cronyn who would be coming here. It would all be just as he had said.

 

_“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare to harm the Thursdays!” Morse shouted._

_“The Thursdays? Oh, I won’t have to go to their house to find you again. You’ll be coming straight back to me.”_

_He was mad. The man was mad._

_“If you don’t come of your own accord, they’ll be dragging you back to me. You’ll see,” he said._

 

Morse went back to the bed, and sat down, swinging his legs back up, sitting upright against the pillows, watching the door. He knew that that man would be coming. It was only a question of when. He had no clock, no watch to mark the passage of time. Nothing at all, really.

He was alone, with nothing.

Which was just as Dr. Cronyn had planned it.

 

In that space of time, in the dull and empty whiteness, it seemed to Morse as if his hearing sharpened, every footfall and shout and cry and murmur magnified. Every sound threatening to be the one that brought Cronyn to his door.

 

When the heavy door began to creak open, Morse was almost relieved— relieved that he would soon have done with it, whatever it was that coming.

 

He stood up, leaping off of the bed and onto his feet as the door opened, and—just as he suspected, just as he had known all along—it was him. It was that man.

 

“Cronyn,” Morse said. 

“Ah. How are we today, Mr. Morse? Or may I call you Endeavour?”

“No,” Morse said. “You may not.”

 

Cronyn stepped inside the room, closing the door behind him. But, to Morse’s surprise, he did not lock it. He did not even close it fast, but rather left it slightly ajar.

Morse frowned. What was he playing at? Was it some point of victory for him if Morse stayed here willingly? Was he offering him a . . . choice?  

Well, if that was the case, it wouldn’t be a difficult one. If that man tried to talk to him, he’d answer, he’d keep him talking, he’d keep him distracted, and, slowly, he’d shift and circle so that their positions were reversed, shift and circle until it was he who was standing before the door.

And then he’d run for it.

 

“How is your hand feeling, Endeavour? Do you need something for the pain before we begin?”

“Why are you doing this?” Morse asked.  

Cronyn actually looked bemused, as if Morse was a child who simply didn’t know what was good for him.

“I told you. I’m trying to help you. To save you from all of the disappointments that I have known. You have to trust me on this. We’re just alike, you and I.”  

“So you’ve said.  But this . . . . this doesn’t feel like  _help._ ”

“You may not see it now,” he said. “but it’s for the best, I assure you. Believe me.”

He sighed, then, looking saddened, as if he pitied him. “You’ve tried so long with these people. So, long, I know. You’ve been living too much in their world, trying to fit in. You have to see that it’s futile. You never will. We don’t belong in this world, either of us. We’re two shards cut from the same bright glass, lying amongst dull stones on a beach. So far removed from the rabble about us, that we can scarcely understand them. Two gods condemned to live amongst the hoi polloi.”

 

Morse snorted. “How gnostic,” he said.  

 

“You can call it what you will. You’ve had that feeling. On the outside, looking in. You sit at that table while the Thursdays chat, but you don’t know what to say. And when you do try to speak, you feel as though you are talking to them as through a fog. As from across another universe. I’ve grown accustomed to it. Almost given up on finding my equal.”

 

“If we’re . . . . _equals ._  . .  then . . . why are you trying to . . . ?” Morse paused, and tilted his head, trying to reach that man, however in vain, through his madness.

“You can’t  _control_  someone, you do know that. Don’t you?”

Cronyn shrugged. “Of course I can. You of all people should know that. Clive Durrell managed it, didn’t he?”

 

Morse’s sharp intake breath caught high in his throat. It was shock, somehow, to hear that name dropped so casually, by someone he did not know. Even as his heart began to beat far too fast in his chest, the rest of him went still, felt slow and numb. And he was not going to talk about that . . . that it should happen again as it had happened before and . . .

 

“Of course, he couldn’t hold you indefinitely. Because you were not made for that. No. You held out against him. Just as I have had to do at times in my life when they tried to lock  _me_  away."

 

Morse stilled at that. So they did have this one fundamental experience in common, then. Years of isolation, of introspection.

Was this what had made the man so fixated on him?

 

“So you see,” Cronyn said. “I do have the power of control. I’ve had years with nothing to do but to hone it. I impose my will. My will is done. Simple as that. And so it will work for you, once you open your eyes. Once the chaff is blown away, once you’ve freed yourself of all of those strictures, and lies, and mores and morals they’ve burdened you with, all of those guidelines to a life of mediocrity.”

 

Morse exhaled sharply, forcing himself to control his shallow breathing, forcing himself to keep his voice steady.

“Well. This is all very interesting. But no. Thank you,” he said, and then, he chanced it—he rose himself to his full height, put his hands behind his back, and shifted his weight where he stood, taking what he hoped would look just like a natural step, a step toward the door.

 

“You don’t trust me,” Cronyn said.

“No.”

“Why? I told you the truth before, didn’t I? They’ve brought you straight back to me. Did it not come to pass, just as I had said?”

“Because you  _made_  it come to pass.”

“That’s right. It’s like I said. Because I am the one in control. As can you be. I see it in you, the same intelligence. We are the puppet masters and they are the puppets.”

 

And no. No-one he loved was anyone’s puppet. 

 

“They’ll stop you,” Morse said, fiercely, and he took another circling backwards step toward the door. 

 

Cronyn laughed. “How? How will they stop me? With that ridiculous trap of a party that that idiot Bixby is planning? However did the police put him up to it? This wasn’t your asinine idea, I’m sure.”  

 

Morse was about to answer truthfully, to say that of course it wasn’t his idea, but then he stopped short.

If he was to beat Cronyn, he’d have to beat him at his own game. Not here, not where he had evidently worked out some masterwork of deception, passing himself of as a so-called psychiatrist.

 

“Yes. It was, actually,” Morse said. “It was all of my idea. I talked with Bixby the day after we found Frida Yelland. Asked him if he would agree to help.”

 

Cronyn looked thunderstruck for a moment, then delighted.  “You’re joking.”

“No. I thought you wouldn’t be able to resist the theatrics of it all. The chance to show us all that you could pull off another theft, right under our noses. To show us all up.”

 

Cronyn looked at him, and then laughed, almost fondly. “Well,” he said. “I’m not interested in paintings anymore. I’m done with that project, finished with it. Do you know why?”

“Why?” Morse asked, shifting his weight, taking one more sidestep back.

“Because I no longer fear death,” Cronyn said, simply.

Then he took another step towards him, holding his eyes in his and murmuring quietly, “Because I was afraid of it, you know. I can admit that to you, if to no one else. Well. Not dying, really, but rather . . . Well. You know it I’m sure, the old fear. It’s the fear we once shared. But that’s all over for us now. We needn’t think about that anymore.”

 

Morse took another step back, edging closer to the door.

 

“Needn’t fear _what_ anymore?” Morse asked.

 

“Dying alone,” Cronyn said. 

 

And Morse went still, his feet rooted to the spot.

 

Cronyn nodded, looking at him knowingly, as if the dark eyes might devour him. “Now that I’ve found my missing half, my nobler instincts, my better angel, I’m sure I can surpass death. That we can. We’re _Asha_ and _Druj_ , order and chaos, two divine halves of the same whole, you and I.”  

“ _Asha_ and _druj?”_ Morse asked, in wonderment. Because there _was_ something familiar there. Nothing to do with ancient Persian texts, but rather with ancient Sanskrit ones, something that he never allowed himself to think about, something that he had never allowed himself to realize for years, for all the years that he had worked the numbers on the white walls. 

 

“That’s right. With power over all. It’s a thrill, isn’t it, to hold the power of life and death in your hands?” Cronyn said. “You know it. You’ve shown it.”  

 

Morse said nothing . . . because was he coming back round to that. . . that it should happen again as it had happened before and ...  

 

“So clever,” he crooned. “So clever. But I’ll be one step ahead. Because I know the truth of you. The face of an angel, a soul full of hope . . . and inside? The abyss.”

Cronyn stepped closer.

“How do you do it?” he asked wonderingly.

“How do I do what?” Morse asked, uncertainly. 

“How do you manage to soar above the turmoil of it, to pull yourself from out of those plummeting depths?  You’re just the same as I am. I’ve seen it. The real Endeavour is there, right on my walls—you know it’s true. What would they say, do you think, if they saw it, the terror inside?”

 

“It’s _not_ true,” Morse snapped. “You drove me to it. You were driving me mad in that place.”

“Do you honestly think anyone else would have done such a thing?”

“I don’t want to talk about that painting.”

“Why not? It’s perfect representation of the ultimate reality. The ultimate truth. What all succumbs to in the end. Except for us.”  

Cronyn took one step closer, and Morse, despite himself, remained where he was, as if rooted to the spot. And then the man took another step and another, until he was close, so close that all it took was a small incline of his head to whisper directly into Morse’s ear.

 

_“I am become death, the shatterer of worlds.”_

 

Morse jumped away, as if he had been scaled. Suddenly, all thoughts of subterfuge flew out of his mind.

 

“I’m going!” Morse cried. “I’m leaving!”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Cronyn said. “Not once they’ve seen my report.”

“How’s that? I’ve done nothing. Nothing!”

Morse turned and bolted for the door, but Cronyn was one step behind him, taking him firmly by the arm, spinning him around, so that they were face to face.

“Are you quite well, Endeavour? You seem very confused to me. Almost delusional. It’s all been too much for you trying to fit into their world. That’s enough now, Endeavour. Time to see sense.”

“No,” Morse said, pulling his arm away. “I’m going.”

“Are you?” Cronyn asked, his face as ever a cold mask of calm.

“Yes! You say I can trust you! But you didn’t keep your word.”

“How is that?”

“You told Thursday that I would talk to someone else, to pass my examination. Not you. I’ll tell them that it was you who came to see me. That you didn’t keep your word. I’m getting out of here. And I’m telling them. I'm telling them all of the mad things that you’ve said.”

“But Endeavour. I think you must be confused. It isn’t Dr. Cronyn who came to see you this morning. It can’t have been.”

 

But Morse was through listening to the madman. Cronyn was right on one score, after all; he never would beat him at this sort of game. That man could twist and turn his words, his thoughts, as easily as breathing. He was always acting, Morse reacting. And he was done. He was finished with it.

 

He lunged away, twisting to pull himself from the man’s heavy grasp, throwing all of his weight backwards, his heart beating in his throat, his body tensing, waiting for the man to firm up on his grip, but, instead, Cronyn released him, and Morse, thrown off balance, stumbled backwards onto the floor.

He scrambled at once to his feet, before the man could try to restrain him again.

 

But he made no move to do so. Instead, he simply smiled.

“All right, Endeavour. If that’s the way it must be. You just tell them that.”

 

“I will!” Morse shouted.

 

He turned and threw open the door, and then he was running as fast as he could down the hall. All around him sounded howls and cries that were frightening at first, until he saw the shadows of blank and defeated faces at the windows and realized that the shouts were meant to be encouraging: the other prisoners of this Victorian monstrosity, of this godawful hellhole, were cheering him on.

He kept running. If only he could find a door out of the twisting and echoing labyrinth of white tile walls and white tile floors and white doorways, if only he could get outside, he’d run—he’d run and he would not stop until he managed to reach the station, until he found Inspector Thursday.

 

_“I am become death, the shatterer of worlds.”_

 

And then it struck him: there would be no escape—not as he was. Dressed thus, he would stand out like a first edition of Keats in a cardboard box of old paperbacks before a bookshop door.

And, oh hell.

He rounded a corner, and came out to an open hall with a small nurses’ station, where a young woman sat behind a desk, and, then, he saw it: a white orderly's coat, left draped over an empty chair. He snatched it up as he ran, swinging it on as he flew, leaving the surprised call of the nurse behind him. Now he might look a bit like someone who worked here, now he had something at least to cover the ludicrous pajamas.

He sped on, adrenaline pumping through his veins, and flew around a corner with such speed that his legs felt as if they were veering off to the left without him and he had to throw his weight back to maintain his balance, and then he kept going, his heart racing fast, his lungs beginning to fill with that delicious burn that meant freedom.

He came to an intersection in the hall and slowed for a fraction of an instant, considering which way to turn.  

He spun to the left, flying around the corner, and ran smack into something at once hard and soft, ran smack into the body of the bulky orderly who he had seen earlier, patrolling the corridors. 

The man seized his arms at once, and Morse twisted and struggled in his grip.  

“Calm down, you,” he said. 

 

His arms restrained, Morse had no choice but to kick at the man. And he kicked and he kicked and struggled and shouted until the man lost all patience, and hauled off and punched him twice in the face, trying to subdue him.

Morse saw stars pop out before his eyes and went momentarily limp in the orderly’s grip, and the man eased up on the hold he had on him.

But then Morse shook his head, wrenched himself free, shoved the man to the ground, spun on his heel and kept on running, leaving the plodding orderly scrambling to his feet and then panting to keep up, shouting for help behind him. 

 

And there it was. At last, an open lobby with desks and wide front doors and Morse was flying out of it, flying past stunned orderlies and out the open doors until it was grass beneath his feet and not tile. Ahead, was a tall chain link fence, and Morse knew that it was over, he knew that he would make it—it was just as he had done that night at the Fenix factory, just as he had done countless times in police training: he threw himself against the fence, leaping about one-third of the way up, and began to climb, and, once he reached the top, he tightened and twisted his abdomen, swinging his legs over, and then dropped down onto the other side.

He didn’t bother to stop to see if anyone was still pursing him. He simply turned and ran, taking off through the trees, tearing off into the woods where no one could follow, putting as much space between himself and that madman as possible. 

As long as he had remained locked up, so would the truth. Now, at least, he would have a fighting chance. 

************

 

Jakes and Thursday arrived at Bellevue to find a scene of utter chaos.

As soon as he saw the flurry of orderlies in white uniforms, searching the grounds, Thursday knew. He wasn’t sure how he knew it, but he knew it just the same. 

 

Morse. 

 

“Goddamn it,” he said.

Jakes snorted and shook his head, taking out a cigarette.

 

A talk with the head administrator of the place confirmed it. Morse had done a runner.

Couldn’t the lad have simply played the game for a few ruddy hours? Given these people what they wanted and gotten the hell out of there?

How could someone so clever be so bloody difficult?

 

The worst of it was, Morse had allegedly attacked an orderly. That bit couldn’t be so, that had to be a lie.

 

“He couldn’t have sat tight and waited five more minutes?” Thursday snapped.

Jakes blew out a blue cloud of smoke in a steady stream. “Maybe he thinks he already sat tight for five years,” he said.

 

Then Jakes laughed, softly. “Morse is getting quite a reputation for himself. I wouldn't have thought he had it in him.”

 

Thursday shook his head in disbelief.

Incredible.

Jakes had more often than anyone been both the cause and the target of Morse’s outbursts, but the sergeant sounded almost pleased, as if Morse was some charge of his who was coming along nicely, as if he found it all rather amusing.

But Thursday didn’t see anything funny in it at all. On the contrary, he felt almost sickened.

He knew that this was not the truth of Morse. There was nothing mad or violent or dangerous about the lad. Not one thing. If he had done this, there must be something else there, something else to it, driving him on.

 

“He didn’t want to cut the bird in half,” Thursday said heavily. 

 

Jakes frowned, confused. “What’s that, sir?” 

 

“At his birthday. Win made him a cake decorated with vines and birds like the ones in his paintings in his room. When he went to cut it, he carved out large slices, because he didn’t want to cut the frosting birds in half.” 

Thursday turned, then, without another word, and began to make his way slowly back over to where the black Jag was parked in the circular drive. Jakes said nothing, but simply followed him out to the car. 

 

*****

 

Thursday sat in his office, looking at the phone on his desk, willing for it to ring.

How had everything gotten so off track? It seemed, in the search for Morse, as if all resources had been drained away from the real case before them, the case of the Pre-Raphaelite killer. Everything had gotten turned round somehow, turned upside down and backwards.

 

He had to believe that Morse still trusted him. So, rather than join the search for the missing Constable—or rather, the Bellevue escapee—he opted to wait at his desk, to wait for the phone to ring. 

 

And finally, it did. 

 

“Thursday,” he said. 

“Sir!” came a shout on the end of the line. 

“Morse!” Thursday replied, cutting across his frantic voice. “What have you been playing at? You need to come in, lad, before this gets blown even more out of proportion.”

“But sir! I had to! _I had to!_ It was him! It was Cronyn!” Morse cried.

 

Thursday’s breath caught hard in his chest.

Oh, god. Perhaps the lad really wasn’t right, perhaps he really _was_ falling apart right before him.

 

“What's that, Constable?” Thursday asked, hoping he had misunderstood. 

“It was Cronyn there! He knows! He knows everything!” 

“What ‘everything?’” Thursday asked. 

 _"Everything!"_ Morse shouted. 

 

Thursday’s heart sank. Oh, Christ. Perhaps he had just not been able to bring himself to see it all along. 

 

“Morse,” he said, calmly. “You must have been mistaken.”

“ _What_?” Morse cried. 

“Dr. Cronyn is dead. He was killed in the early hours of the morning. We found his body in his private offices.”

“But . . .”  Morse said, his voice strangely breathless, as though he had been running, as though he was drifting. “No. No,” he said. “No, no, no.”

“Morse. Listen to me, now. You have to trust me, lad. You have to come in. Do you . . . .” 

“But sir! He was just there! He came to see me this morning! He all but confessed that he’s behind all!”

"Morse. I understand that you've been upset. But you're going to have to trust me now." 

"I'm not upset!" Morse cried. "And I'm not lying!" 

 

That was it. This was going nowhere. Why wouldn't the lad bloody listen to him? 

 

“Morse!” he shouted. “You’re not right! Come home!”

 

And then there was a crash, as the receiver was slammed down onto the carriage. 

 

“Morse!” Thursday shouted. 

 

But the line was dead. 

 

“Morse!”

 

“Goddammit,” Thursday said aloud, slamming the receiver down.

He stood, then, for a moment, in the silence of his office, lost in thought.

None of this added, up, none of it.

 

For a moment, he didn't know what to believe.

And then he realized, that, of course he did.

 

Well. In cases like this, Thursday always felt, there was no substitute for good old-fashioned police work.

He picked up a set of keys on his desk.

Thursday had a line of inquiry to make. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Morse needs to get that place shut down while he’s at it!


	14. Chapter 14

When Trewlove arrived at the downstairs offices of Cowley Station for the late afternoon shift, she found the place largely empty.

As she suspected, only Fancy remained. He was sitting at his desk in the strangely quiet rooms, his feet propped up on the desktop and his hands resting behind his head—but, despite his casual posture, his thin face was screwed up as if he was deep in thought.

 

He made it look a painful enterprise.

 

“You aren’t with the others, out on the search?” Trewlove asked.

“No. I was assigned to mind things here. Not that there’s much in,” Fancy said.

“Mmmmmm,” Trewlove hummed.

She wasn’t sure if Fancy saw it—he could be terribly impolitic—but Trewlove had the impression that it was no accident that he should be the one to be left behind.

Doubtless, as Morse’s partner—and as his alleged one-time partner in crime—Fancy was not quite trusted with the task of bringing Morse in.

“It seems all wrong, doesn’t it?” he mused. “Everyone is out trying to round up Morse, when we’ve got a killer on the loose,” Fancy said.

“Well,” Trewlove said. “That’s all been down to Morse, hasn’t it?”

 

Fancy paused, moving his hands from behind to the top of his head, and frowned. “What do you mean?”  

 

“Well,” Trewlove said, “His behavior’s been rash, to say the least. He’s been foolish. I understand that Dr. Cronyn’s rubbed him the wrong way from the very beginning, but he was bang out of order, if you ask me.”

“That smooth bastard most likely had it coming,” Fancy retorted. “Going on about how he resented his mother and such, presuming to speak for Morse. He’s an arse, is what I think.”

Trewlove laughed ruefully. “That’s just what psychiatrists do, isn’t it? Ask about your past, try to help. You needn’t attempt to  _strangle_  them.”

“Maybe,” Fancy said. “Unless it turns out they aren’t really a psychiatrist.”

“Oh, no, not you, too,” Trewlove said.

“Really, Shirl. What sort of psychiatrist goes about knocking people out? It’s 1965, I would have thought. Not 1865.”

 

It _had_ taken her by surprise, she had to admit, but it did, on the other hand, seem understandable.

If a man was lunging at her throat, she might be quite tempted to do the same.

 

“He had to act. It was self-defense,” she said.

Fancy made a disparaging noise.

 _“Morse,_ ” was all he said, as if the word was enough to refute that argument.

“He may not seem threatening to you or to Sergeant Jakes or to Inspector Thursday,” she replied, “but you have to remember: you are all police officers. He’s a sedentary psychiatrist. He might not know how to engage a man in an all-out brawl.”

 

Trewlove had thought Morse had looked a bit alarming, truth be told; his hand was bleeding profusely through the bandages after he had struck Jakes, but by the time he was going at Cronyn, he behaved as if he didn’t even notice, as if he didn’t feel a thing, so determined was he to fly at the man.

 

“You just don’t know Morse the way I do,” Fancy said. “Cronyn must have done something to egg him on.”

Trewlove shrugged. That was true enough. She knew Morse only in passing; it was Fancy who spent more time with him during the workday than anyone else at the station, and if he was wont to take Morse’s side in it all, there was something to be said for that, to be certain.

 

And there was something else as well.  

 

“It true that . . . Cronyn is a bit . . .well . . . ” she had to concede.

Fancy sat up then, as if waiting to hear his suspicions validated.

“A bit what?”

“Well,” Trewlove said. “Ghoulish.”

Fancy sat up the rest of the way then, looking pleased as Punch.  “He is, isn’t he?”  he asked, as if this argument alone, his gut feeling that Morse must always be right and whoever opposed him must always be wrong, was enough to go on, as if it wasn’t necessary to look at all sides of the case.

 

He was a good policeman, but she wasn’t sure if he’d make much of a detective.

 

“You heard all of the holes Sergeant Jakes put into Morse’s latest, though,” Trewlove said, cautiously. “Dr. Cronyn was with us when Frida’s body was found.”

“Frida might very well be an entirely different case. Morse was right. That painting was never stolen.”

“And yet, it was Morse saying before that it certainly  _was_ connected. Morse who went mucking around in Trill Mill Stream. He’d be much more convincing, Morse, if he wasn’t forever blowing whichever way the wind blows.”

“He’s just doing what you’re doing now,” Fancy protested. “Trying to see all sides of this mess.”

“Besides,” Trewlove said, with an air of finality.  “We know who the culprit is. Keith Miller. We’ve been walking all over Oxford for weeks, following his trail.”

“And we’re always one step behind him, aren’t we?” Fancy said.

 

He looked triumphant as he said this, as if he was leading up to some larger leap.

 

“What are you thinking?” Trewlove asked.  

“His description. The beard, the glasses. It’s like Morse said, isn’t it? You can buy all that at any Woolworth’s.”

“So, what are you saying? That Keith Miller doesn’t _exist?_ We’ve seen his cheques, we’ve seen his flat, we’ve spoken to his neighbors.”

“I’m saying precisely that,” Fancy said.

Trewlove shook her head. “You’re loyal to Morse. That’s commendable but . . .”

“Who told us about this Keith Miller?” Fancy cut in. “Who got us all started on this wild goose chase?”

“ _Wild goose chase_?” Trewlove cried incredulously. They’d been walking for miles, working for weeks on the Miller case; to hear it reduced to such was a bit too much.

“All right, line of inquiry, then,” Fancy amended.

“It was . . . ,” Trewlove began. And then she paused. “It was Dr. Cronyn, wasn’t it?”

 

Fancy looked at her as if to say, _Well. There you go then._

 

“But why?” she asked. “What would be the point of it?

“He gave us the answer himself, didn’t he?” Fancy said. “It’s just like he told us. It’s a game. We’re all prey.”

“So Cronyn is this Keith Miller?” Trewlove asked. “But he can’t be who took Morse. Inspector Thursday called the Peterborough police. His mother and the neighbors said he’d been visiting there.”

Fancy made another disparaging noise.

 _“His mother_ ,” he said.

 

Trewlove rolled her eyes.

Another mere dismissal did not constitute fact. Besides, even if a mother might lie to cover for a son, why would the neighbors follow suit?

 

Just then, the main doors opened, and Fancy and Trewlove looked up at the sudden sound.

Trewlove blinked, surprised. It was ACC Deare. What would bring the assistant chief constable to the offices of the Cowley constabulary?  

You would think that, with a serial killer terrorizing the city and one of Oxford’s own gone rogue, the man would have enough to be getting on with.

 

“Ah, Constable Fancy,” he said, strolling over to the desk, as if he just so happened to be dropping by. “Thought I might have a word.”

He turned to her, pointedly. “Don’t you have some filing to do, sweetheart?”

 

Trewlove stiffened, but managed to keep her face impassive.

“Sir,” she said.

 

It was perfect, really. It suited her fine. Yes, she would go over to the other side of the office and do the filing like a good girl.

Deare obviously considered her so low in the scheme of things that he felt he needn’t bother to send her away entirely, that it didn’t matter if she overheard whatever it was he had to tell Fancy.

But he had better believe it: She would be listening to his every word.

 

“I wanted to talk with you. About the other day, at Chipperfield Studios. I fear I might have sounded a bit harsh,” he said.

 “We were simply inquiring about a missing girl,” Fancy said.

“I understand that. But you were out of bounds. It’s not your job to go about making inquiries, nor are the studios within your sanctioned jurisdiction. There’s a reason for the order of things. I’m sure you see that now.”

He paused, and added, “Whose idea was it for you to come to the studio that day, if I might ask?”

Fancy hesitated.

“Well. It was Morse’s,” he conceded.

Deare nodded knowingly. “You have a long career in front of you. It’s been a rough start, paired with a partner who should not have been admitted to the force in the first place.”

Trewlove kept her eyes on her filing, but she could tell by the way that Deare already began to cut across him that Fancy had been about to protest that last.

“Your loyalty is misplaced,” Deare said. “Commendable. But misplaced. Morse certainly doesn’t have the best interests of your career at heart.”

 

Trewlove had to suppress a snort at that. That bit, at least, was certainly true. But then again, Morse didn’t have the best interests of his _own_ career at heart.

 

“So you’ll be relieved, I’m sure, to know that you are being assigned a new partner,” Deare continued.

“But . . . what about Morse?”

Deare laughed incredulously. “You don’t seriously believe Morse will be reinstated after this, do you? The man is unstable. His career is finished. But yours is just beginning. An officer of your caliber. You can go far. You might make Chief Superintendent one day. Balanced, even-headed, well-liked, stick to your own business and let others mind theirs, sharp—Mr. Bright said it was you whose lead let to the recovery of three of the paintings, you who tracked Keith Miller to his last known address.”

“Well,” Fancy said. “Yes. Me and WPC Trewlove,” he said.

 

Trewlove couldn’t help but look up at the sound of her name; when she did, she saw that Fancy had gestured toward her with a nod of his head.

Deare considered her for a moment, but then seemed to look through her, as if she was no consequence. “Oh, yes. Bright might have mentioned,” he said.

 

Again, Trewlove had to turn away, to struggle to repress a snort.

She was quite sure that Mr. Bright had "mentioned." He was one of the few men over forty she had encountered who seemed to realize she was capable of more than filing and delivering messages.

 

“You’ll be getting a new assignment in a few weeks, after the inquiry. I'm sure I can count on your help there, as well. In the end, you'll find it will be a fresh start for all of us. I’ll be putting in my recommendation to Chief Constable Standish about you. It seems as if you’ve handled a fraught situation with grace and dignity." 

And here, he lowered his voice.

“In fact,” he said. “I might be able to extend you an invitation to a certain secret society… one that would certainly help you along in your career.”

 

“Sir,” Fancy said.

Deare stepped back, smiling at Fancy fondly. Then he gave a final dismissive nod and left.

 

Trewlove scowled. What was it about Morse and Fancy that seemed always to interest the assistant chief constable so?

Whatever the hell it was, it had her reassessing her stance, reweighing the evidence, and tilting her opinion back in favor of Morse.

Morse might be difficult, he might have handled things badly.

But he might also be right. Things might be more complicated than they seemed. The easiest answer wasn’t always the correct one.

And it certainly seemed that Deare was eager to shut him down. 

 

She waited a few moments, to be quite certain Deare had gone, before making her way back to Fancy’s desk.

“You know what that was all about, don’t you?” Trewlove asked.

“Yeah,” Fancy said. “It’s a payoff. He wants me to throw Morse under the bus.”

 

Well. She wouldn’t have said it quite so simply . . . . but. . . . 

 

“Yes. He wants you to throw Morse under the bus.”

 

From his mulish expression, it was clear that Fancy wasn’t about to trade in his prickly partner his for an invitation to a brotherhood of Oxford’s wealthiest and most powerful.

 

“So,” he said. “What should we do?”

Trewlove smiled.

Perhaps there was more to Fancy then a feathered dark fringe and a cute little arse.

 

******************

Morse stood there in the red call box, in those ridiculous loose-fitting pajamas, covered by an overlarge orderly’s coat, his thoughts spinning.

Cronyn couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be. He had just spoken to him not an hour ago.

Somehow, they had gotten to Thursday. In fact, his call might be being traced, even now.

 

He slammed down the receiver and rested his head against it, trying to calm his thoughts, trying to still his mind.

 

It sounded impossible, it sounded baroque, but somehow that man must have faked his own death. The body Thursday had found could not have been Cronyn’s body.

Which meant that he had .... gotten a . . . a body from somewhere. 

Which meant that he had killed again while they had been caught up in his game, while they had been running in circles.

 

They _had_ been going in circles, set by him. He had been right, Cronyn. He was the puppet master. They were the puppets, dancing to his tune.

Morse closed his eyes.

 

An intelligent person doesn’t make the same mistake over and over. An intelligent person looks for something new, some new piece of information previously overlooked.

And suddenly, it occurred to him: Cronyn behaved as if he were a god, as if he knew all.

But meanwhile, there was someone who really _did_ seem to know all, someone who remained apart, someone who sat, godlike, in her office, watching over the city, while she herself remained unseen.

He pulled the phone book out of the small shelf in the call box and flipped it open, searching for her address.

***********

Dorothea Frazil reached the end of a line of type, sent the carriage back with a with a clang, and then kept on typing, striking key after key, careful to maintain the right rhythm, lest the keys stick.

 

Just then, Terrence, the copy boy, opened her office door a crack and poked his head in, flipping his sandy mop of hair from his face.

 

“Miss Frazil? There’s someone here who wants to see you,” he said.

“Well,” she said, not looking up from her work, “They are just going to have to wait, aren’t they? The edition closes in an hour.”

He flashed her a rueful grin. “I dunno, chief. I think you might want to see this one.”

 

“Why? Does he have a story?” she asked. “If it’s anything less than a stop press, it will have to wait.”

Terrence laughed. “This bloke has got several stories, from the looks of things.”

 

Dorothea frowned, her interest piqued. Terrence usually knew damned well not to trouble her at this time of the afternoon; if he was so confident, this visitor must have some tale to tell worth her while.

 

“Well,” she asked, setting the carriage back to the beginning of the line of type, looking up at last. “Who is this enigmatic person?”

 

Terrence smiled and stepped back, then, opening the door to reveal a man in a pair of pajamas and an oversized orderly’s jacket, a man with disheveled tawny-red hair, two blossoming black eyes and a cut across the bridge of his nose.

 

Dorothea sat up sharply in her chair.

 

Who the hell was Terrence letting in here?  

 

“Miss Frazil?” the man asked, then, in a low and mournful voice, with just a trace of the north. A voice that she had heard once before.

She scrutinized his face—in the shadows of the bruises were two large and searching blue eyes that she recognized.

“Constable Morse?” she asked.

“Hello,” he said, uncertainly.

 

Holy hell. What had happened to him?

They had just run the story of his return in the day before yesterday’s evening edition. What was he doing out and about, and in such a state?

 

She was about to blurt out the question, to ask him point-blank what in Christ’s name he'd gotten himself into, but he seemed skittish enough as it was, so instead, she behaved as if he did not look at all out of the ordinary, as if people came into her office in their pajamas every day.

 

She gestured for him to come in and sit down.

 

“So. Constable Morse. What can I do for you?” she asked.

“I . . .  I … I need your help,” he said.

The four words seemed wrenched from him, as if he had never said them before.

 

Which the prickly buggar probably hadn’t.

 

“I need to know if you know anything about a Keith Miller,” he said.

“Keith Miller?” she asked. She opened her drawer and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it up and taking a meditative drag. “Not the most uncommon name. Can you give me a bit more to go on?”

“He’s a man. From Oxfordshire. Evidently, he killed his mother, years ago. With an axe.”

Dorothea frowned. There was something familiar there.

“I don’t know about any Keith Miller. But there _was_ a man my old editor used to talk about. It was a bit of a ghost story, really, he used to tell the newbies on the police beat, just to rattle their cages. Only the name was Mason Gull.”

 

Morse startled a bit at that. “ _Gull_?” he asked, his eyes widening, as if the name seemed to mean something to him.

 

She nodded, and then she got up from her desk and walked back over to the half-open door.

“Terrence?” she called.

“Yeah, chief?”

“I need you to go down to the archives for me. Pull out whatever you see about Mason Gull. April ‘44.”

“All right,” he replied.

 

She went back over to her desk, Morse watching her closely, looking a bit stunned.

“From what I recall, they ran a coaching inn by Wolvercote," she said.

“An inn,” Morse murmured to himself, thoughtfully.

“Yes. I say ‘they.’ But it was really just Mason Gull and his mother. Thing is, there was an American general billeted there. This was the build-up to D-Day, don’t forget. At any rate, this general had taken a bit of a shine to Mrs. Gull, by all accounts, and that’s what led to it.”

“In the end, word came down from the War Office—at the highest level—that that aspect of the story was to be spiked. D-Day looming. Dangerous talk costs lives. I suppose.”

“What happened to him? Gull?”

“I don’t know. Institutionalized, I suppose, one way or another.”

“If his name was Gull, why would he have changed his name to Keith Miller?” Morse asked.

“Who says that he has?” she asked.

“Because I met him,” Morse said. “Mason Gull. He’s posing as a psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Cronyn.”

 

Dorothea stilled at that.

 

“But Dr. Cronyn is dead. One of my reporters was down there on a death knock just this morning,” she said, cautiously.

“No,” Morse said. “It’s a ruse. I don’t know who that was. But it wasn’t Cronyn. Cronyn is Keith Miller who must really be this Mason Gull.”

 

Dorothea took another drag on her cigarette, wondering if perhaps her first impression of the man who stumbled into her office wasn’t wrong, after all, wondering if there might perhaps be something not quite right with the constable. 

 

She sat back, and was just beginning to process what he had said, when Terrence poked his head into the office with a soft knock on the door.

 

“I’ve got it,” he said. “Two short columns, so far, anyway. That’s all I’ve found.”

“Hmmmm,” Dorothea said.

 

So. Old Sid Fellows was right, then. Perhaps only the barest of facts surrounding the case had been allowed to go print.

 

Terrence began to hand her the paper, but, seeing how Morse was so eager to read it, he paused and raised his eyebrows in question. She nodded, and he instead passed the paper to Morse, who immediately began to devour the words as if his life depended on them.

 

For a moment, Morse read in silence, saying nothing. Dorothea finished her cigarette in a final exhale of blue spiraling tendrils, and was just stubbing it out, when Morse looked up at her, sharply.

 

“I’m the killer,” he said.

 

She froze, her hand still pressing the cigarette stub down into the glass ashtray on her desk.

 

 _“What?_ ” she asked.

 

He looked at her, his blue eyes wide, as if the full import of his words had only just dawned on him.

 

“I’m the killer,” he said.

She frowned.

 

Of course, he couldn’t mean that _literally._

Could he?

Or . . . . perhaps he meant that he felt responsible for the Pre-Raphaelite killer, as the police had not been able so far to stop him? But that didn’t make sense. He was only one PC, after all.

 

“You can’t blame yourself, Morse,” she began.

“No,” he said. “This Dr. Cronyn. He’s a psychiatrist. Specializing in serial killers. He came down to talk to us, at the station. Told everyone there a story of a man called Keith Miller. But it’s a joke. It’s a blind.”

 

He leaned forward in his chair and gestured to a scrap bit of paper on her desk.

 

“May I?” he asked.

 

She nodded.

 

He took up a spare pencil, holding it in his left hand—gingerly, as his fingertips were wrapped in bandages—and wrote out a string of letters in a neat, back slant print. She watched him as he worked, and Terrence, too, moved forward, looking over his shoulder, until Morse completed the words:

 

KEITH MILLER

 

Then he filled in the same letters, one by one, in a scattered sort of order, until they spelled out:

 

IM THE KILLER

 

“Jesus,” Terrence whispered.  

For a moment, the three of them looked at one another in silence; then, there was a sound of a siren from outside, wailing and then fading out. Morse leapt up from his chair and crossed the room to the window, opening a pair of slots in the Venetian blinds, so that he might better see the street outside. Then he jumped away. 

“It looks like they are going door-to-door, asking about someone,” Terrence remarked, peering out onto the street.

“I . . . I have to go,” Morse said.

Dorothea frowned again, perplexed. He was a constable. Why did he seem afraid of the police, when he _wa_ s the police?

“Are you in any sort of trouble?” she asked.

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” he said. “I have to go. Will you please do me a favor, though?”

“Depends on what it is,” she said.

“Will you give that article, and that piece of paper to Inspector Fred Thursday, at Cowley CID? _Only_ to Inspector Thursday?”

“Of course, but . . .”

“I have to go . . .” He was turning to head out the door, when Dorothea stood up. “Hang on a moment,” she called.

 

He stopped and turned again, keeping his weight on one foot, as if prepared to bolt.

 

“My sports editor,” she said. “He’s not in at the moment. But he keeps an extra set of clothes in his office, in case of rain at an event. You might attract a bit less attention wearing something else other than hospital pajamas, don’t you think?”

“I suppose,” he said, uncertainly.

“Come on then….” she said, walking around him and heading out the door. He followed her down the hall, tentatively, as if he thought she might be quite mad.

 

Which was amusing as hell, really.

 

She took him into Ned’s office, and opened a small wardrobe in the corner, where the extra suit hung on a rod. Under a box of old files, she produced a rather crunched pair of shoes. It all might fit a little large on the lanky constable, but he’d certainly blend into the crowd better than he would as he was dressed currently.

God only knew what he had been doing, to have gotten into such a state, but if the police were walking up and down the pavement outside, asking questions, it was perhaps better if she didn’t know.

“Here you are,” she said, thrusting the lot into his bandaged hands. “Can you . . . can you dress yourself?”  

He looked at her haughtily, and she took his point, and turned her back, giving him a modicum of privacy.

 

“You’re not worried about this?” he asked, as he changed.

“How so?” Dorothea asked.

“Well,” he said. “You’re not afraid that you’re aiding and abetting?”

“I dunno,” she mused. “I’ll take my chances.”

 

She stood, arms folded, and waited, listening to the sounds of his footsteps and the rustle of fabric as he got himself into the tweedy suit.

 

“All right,” he said, at last. “I’m done.”

 

She turned, and could scarcely suppress a smile—he had the buttons of his shirt rather poorly done, but at least he looked more respectable than he had when he had come in.

 

“I don’t know why you’re helping me like this,” Morse said. “But thank you.”

Dorothea laughed. “Well,” she said. “If you want to thank me, then next time I ask for a quote, perhaps you might give it to me.”  

He pulled himself up to his full height, looking affronted. “Any such recompense would leave us both open to charges of bribery and . . .” he stopped short, noticing, no doubt, the amused expression on her face.

“Well,” he said. “As long as it’s nothing that might have a bearing on the outcome of the case . . . I suppose I ....”

She nodded. “Now you’re learning.”

 

He didn’t look greatly heartened. He turned then, to go, but then stopped short and said, "You will give those things to Inspector Thursday? Won't you?"

 

"I'll deliver them myself," she assured him.

 

He nodded in thanks, and turned to go, but then turned around once more. "Oh," he said. "I _do_ have a story for you, actually. An exposé on Bellevue. The place is an anachronistic Victorian nightmare. It ought to be shut down. I doubt if anyone gets much help at all there. An orderly punched me right in the _face!_ ” he said, his voice rising in disbelief by the end of the last sentence.  

 

“Oh,” she said. “Is that what happened to you?”

 

He seemed to startle at that. “Why?” he asked, shortly. “Why do you say that? What do I look like?”

 

“Nevermind,” she said.

 

The poor sod was awkward enough as it was—there was no need for him to be even more self-conscious.

 

“Do you have anywhere to go?” she asked.  

“Yes,” he said, with a touch of asperity. “I’m going to a friend’s.”

“Ah,” she replied.

 

Perhaps he was savvier then he looked, then. He didn’t seem the type to have a wealth of friends, but she remembered from that night at the concert that he was close to Lord Marston, from the days when they were at Oxford together.

Morse would be wise to look him up. He might very well be the only man in Oxfordshire with pockets deep enough to hire a legal team to get Morse out of . .

… whatever it was he had gotten himself into.

 

Which suited her quite well. When all this was over, she sensed not only an exclusive in the offering, but something even better.

 

An ally on the force.

 

“Here,” she said, steering him gently to the left as he went out into the hall. “You’d better go out the back way, down the fire escape,” she said. “Once you get down to the pavement, toss those pajamas in the first bin you see and go. Just act natural.”

 

He looked at her doubtfully.

 

“You seem to know an awful lot about this sort of thing,” he said.

 

She winked, and pushed him off toward the back door, just as she heard them calling for her downstairs.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! If anyone is sticking with this, I would really love to know! :0)


	15. Chapter 15

Thursday pulled up along the quiet, leafy road on the far outskirts of the city of Peterborough—a country lane dotted with a few scattered brick homes, messy, yellowing plum trees and tall, fire-orange birches—and then he brought the Jag to a halt, shifting the gear into park.

 

It was just like his old gran used to say: if you wanted something done right, you had best do it yourself.

 

The Peterborough police had said that they had checked and verified Dr. Cronyn’s alibi—the one that the doctor had so willingly provided in the name of “reassuring that unfortunate young man”— but Thursday knew all too well that the officers there had their own cases to solve—it was quite possible that there might have been something they overlooked.

 

“If Oxford City’s so set on it, why don’t they ruddy well come up here and ask about it themselves,” he could imagine some broad-nosed sergeant, behind on his paperwork, grumbling under his breath. 

 

And he might well have had a point.

 

It was clear that Morse had not been himself when he had lunged at Dr. Cronyn—that he had been distraught, overwhelmed, no doubt, at being sent to help Jakes track down the house in which he had been held captive without having had ample time to catch his breath. Thursday had seen it time and time again in the war—soldiers sent back to the front too soon, before they were ready.

But just because Morse had made a poor showing for himself—had seemed even, perhaps, momentarily not in his right mind—that didn’t mean necessarily that there was nothing to his story.

 

Thursday swung his legs out of the car and stood up tall, stretching his back out as he did so, loosening muscles stiffened after the long drive.

He checked his watch; it was only a little over two hours since he had left Oxford.

They hadn’t been able to get much out of Morse in regards to his abduction, but in none of his retelling of events did he make it to sound as if his abductor was there, in the house with him always. It sounded as if there were long stretches of time in which he was left alone, locked in an upstairs room—that his captor had only come from time to time, to talk to him through the door, and that he had actually come into the room only twice, both times in the dead of the night, to bring in food and paint.

There could have been plenty of time for a man to come up here, to visit, to do some odd jobs for his mother, to be seen by the neighbors, and then to drive back south to some location in Oxfordshire, to check on, or—by the sound of things—to torment Morse.

 

Thursday looked up to the brick Georgian house that, according to electoral records, was the home of Mrs. Isobel Cronyn. All was tidy and quiet—nothing from the outside looked the slightest bit out of the ordinary.

 

Down the road, at a house across the street, a young woman with long dark hair was hanging her laundry out on a line, pinning up white sheets that rolled and billowed like sunbright clouds in the autumn wind.

He began walking down along the road, toward the house where the woman was working. Might as well start with the neighbors, before heading over to the mother’s house.

 

“Hello, madam,” Thursday said, tipping his hat, as soon as he was within earshot.

“Hello,” the young woman replied. Her smile was genuine, but there was, understandably, a shadow of uncertainty in her face.

“Detective Inspector Fred Thursday, Oxford City Police,” he said, by way of introduction, pulling out his warrant card.

A faint crease formed between the young woman’s brows. “Oh,” she said. “Is everything all right? We just talked to the police. Just yesterday.”

“About Dr. Cronyn,” Thursday supplied.

“Yes,” she said. “We met him a few weeks ago. He seems very nice. He even helped my husband bring some of the larger things in.”

 

Thursday stilled at that.

 

 _“Met?_ ” he asked. “You mean you had never seen Dr. Cronyn before?”

“No,” she said. “We’re quite new here.  My husband’s just gotten a new job, you see. But he seems very nice, Dr. Cronyn. He was just up here to do some gardening for his mother. And to hire a new woman to stay with her. The old caregiver up and quit, evidently. She’s a nice old lady, Mrs. Cronyn, but a bit of a handful, I expect.”

“A handful?” Thursday asked. “How so?”

The young woman leaned forward and lowered her voice, conspiratorially, “Poor old thing’s a bit dotty, I’m afraid. It’s sad, really.”

 

And here was a tale filled with a thousand things that set Thursday’s alarm bells ringing.

 

Mrs. Cronyn was in such a state that she required a caregiver?

The woman who had worked there before suddenly up and quit?

 

Was there  _anyone_  in that house across the street who might have known an imposter from the real Dr. Cronyn?

 

Thursday tipped his hat once more and nodded.

“Thank you, madam,” he said.

“Of course,” she said.

 

The Inspector turned away, then, and headed back down the street toward the silent and stately brick home, edged with tidy hedges.

 

It was with steps heavy and slow that Thursday crossed the deserted road; he was an old copper, and he had seen quite a lot in his day, but he was filled nevertheless with a sort of terrible trepidation. He knew it, down to his bones, that he was about to stumble upon the sort of twisted scheme the likes of which he may have never seen before.

He walked up the pleasant lawn, past shrubs of holly that looked as if they had been recently trimmed by a dutiful son, and went up to the white front door, lifting the old brass knocker and wrapping three times, sharply.

 

A pleasant-faced middle aged woman with gray curling hair soon opened the door.

“Good afternoon, madam. Detective Inspector Fred Thursday, Oxford City Police,” Thursday said, flashing his warrant card.

The woman frowned. “The police again?” she asked. “They were just here. Is there something else the matter?”

“I’m not quite sure, madam,” he said. “I’d like to come in and have a word, if that’s all right with you, Mrs. Cronyn.”

“Of course,” the woman said, stepping aside to allow him into the wide foyer, empty save for a long table holding a vase full of the last of the October roses.

“Only I’m not Mrs. Cronyn,” the woman explained. “I’m Mrs. Tennett. Harriet Tennett. I’m Mrs. Cronyn’s companion, you see.”

“Ah,” Thursday said. “Been here long?”

“No,” she said. “Mrs. Cronyn’s former caregiver left just recently. Mrs. Johnson, her name was. She was getting along in years herself, and so she went to go live with her daughter, up in Edinburgh, evidently. So Mrs. Cronyn’s son hired me only a few weeks ago.”

 

Thursday could scarcely believe it was happening. Here, as he had suspected, was another person, then, who could cheerfully attest that she had seen Dr. Cronyn visiting his mother over the last few weeks.

 

Even though she might not have the slightest idea as to what Dr. Cronyn actually looked like.

 

But no, it couldn’t be so. It couldn’t all be an elaborate ruse. Surely a mother would know her own son? 

 

“May I speak to Mrs. Cronyn?” Thursday asked. 

“Of course,” Mrs. Tennett said. “She’s just having some tea. Won’t you come in to the drawing room?”

She led him down the hall, then, and into a large and open room filled with light from a row of tall windows and furnished with a powder-blue three-piece suite—sofa, loveseat and armchair—all gathered around a low oval table set for tea.

 

No one was there.

 

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Tennett said. “She must have wandered into the kitchen. Just a moment, please, Inspector.”

 

And then she swept out through another doorway.

 

While she was gone, Thursday took a bit of a wander about the room, taking note of the floral blue, green and gold curtains gathered at windows, the glass swans on the glossy maple end-table, the doilies on the armrests of the furniture, meant to protect the upholstery, the two cats lazing in a sunny windowsill, watching him idly—it was a perfectly ordinary room, much like one that might be found in the home of any old woman.

On the mantel, in a place of pride, was a photograph of the man Thursday knew as Dr. Cronyn, and for a moment, the Inspector wondered if his suspicions might be misguided after all. 

 

Then, they were back in overdrive. It wasn’t unusual for an old woman to have a picture of her successful doctor of a son displayed so prominently—but you would think that there would be other framed photographs as well—ones of him as a child, as a gawky teenager, all big ears and unruly hair—or a portrait of the whole family together. His own mother had had an entire shelf of photographs depicting him and Charlie and Billy at different ages, and then another two of Sam and Joan and Carol and Jeanne and Robbie besides.

“Ah, here she is,” Mrs. Tennett said, at last, coming into the room, leading a wiry old lady in a lavender cardigan gently by the elbow.

 

“Daniel?” the old lady asked. 

 

Oh, god.

 

It only took one look at the befuddled and myopic old woman’s face to see that the poor lady was, to utilize the neighbor’s term, completely "dotty."

 

“Daniel?” she asked. “Did you come back to prune the tree out at the edge of the garden? It’s getting terribly overgrown, dear.”  

Behind her, Mrs. Tennett shook her head apologetically.

“No, Mrs. Cronyn,” she said, in the relentlessly cheery voice that people tend to use with the very old and the very young. “This isn’t Daniel. Your son was just here a few days ago, remember? But he’ll be back at the week-end, and we’ll all have a nice tea together. Won’t that be jolly?”

“Won’t what be jolly?”

 

Oh, Christ.

 

“When we have tea,” Mrs. Tennett said.

“Who is this, then?” the old woman asked, waving a hand towards him.

“This gentleman is from the police,” Mrs. Tennett explained.

“Well, isn’t that nice, dear?” Mrs. Cronyn said. "Won't you have some tea with us, young man?"

 

Thursday stepped back.

“No. I won’t ma’am. Thank you.”

 

Then he looked to Mrs. Tennett. Peterborough wasn’t at all in his jurisdiction but, in light of the circumstances . . .

 

 “Would you mind terribly if I have a look-see? See if there’s anything the Peterborough police might have overlooked? It’s a missing persons case, you see, and if we can find anything at all to help us......”  

“Oh,” Mrs. Tennett said. “Of course. Is it a patient of Dr. Cronyn’s? There might be some records in his study that could be helpful, if it is. The doctor has a desk here that he uses when he’s visiting. It’s in the front room.” 

“Thank you, Mrs. Tennett,” Thursday said. 

 

It wasn’t a patient that was missing—but rather, most likely, it was Dr. Cronyn himself, but the woman need not know the awful truth just yet, not until he was sure. 

 

Thursday went into the study and rifled through some papers on the desk. Another cat, a tabby, leapt lightly down from the top of a nearby bookshelf amidst them as he searched, perusing through Dr. Cronyn’s notes—hospital rotas, dictations that must have been taken from patients, nothing remarkable.

 

Then, in a bottom drawer, he found them, wrapped in newspaper—a stack of photographs in gilt frames.  

The first was a photograph of Mrs. Cronyn, looking very much younger but recognizable all the same, standing next to a man who could only be her husband, her hand resting on the shoulder of a boy with a thatch of dark hair. Then, there was another photo of the same boy, alone on a pony. And then another of some sort of graduation ceremony—the dark-haired boy now a young man in a gown and bonnet, smiling with his mother, now middle-aged.

And so on.

At the bottom of the stack was a photograph of a man with dark hair—slightly thinning—a square-chinned, smiling face, and blue eyes.

A man who could only be the real Dr. Daniel Cronyn.

 

Incredible.

 

Then who in the hell was . . .

 

It struck Thursday, then, with a shock that was almost visceral, that, for once, Morse’s euphemism for men he did not care to name—“that man”—was all too apt.

Thursday didn’t know who “that man,”—the one who had been down at the nick—was, but he was certain that he was _not_ Dr. Daniel Cronyn.

 

It was almost too ghastly to be believed.

 

That man, the killer, whoever the hell he really was, had actually come up here and stayed at this very house, pruning the holly hedges and listening to the old woman ramble by the fireside, using the poor lady’s confusion to forge for himself an alibi.

 

And he had done more than that, hadn’t he?  For Thursday suddenly doubted that Mrs. Johnson, the only one up here who would have known the difference, had abruptly quit her position.

 

Could it be that the man had _killed_ the woman then, simply because she knew that he was not the real Dr. Cronyn? Killed her simply to create a world that would place him two hours from Oxford throughout many of the days of his crime spree? A place to which he could retreat, moving back and forth between the two points, to throw the timeline into confusion?

 

And what of the real Dr. Cronyn? Where was _he_ while the killer was up here, at his mother's house? Where was the _real_ Daniel the old woman had been looking for?

 

And then it hit him. He was dead. Killed in his own consulting rooms, his body left to lie on his own settee as acid ate away his face, obscuring his identity forever.

It was one of the sickest things Thursday had ever run across in all of his years.

All of this, before he had even gotten _started_? All of this, just for an _alibi_?

 

He looked down then, at the photograph in his broad hands, down at what might very well be the last image of a man whose face had been destroyed.

And then his heart skipped a beat.

The newspaper wrapping the photographs was dated Thursday, October 9, 1965.

 

And the word  _Thursday_ was circled in a deep blue pen.

 

October the ninth. That was weeks after all of this had begun. Sometime during those weeks that the killer had held Morse hostage somewhere.

The newspapers were a relatively new addition, then. It was as if the killer had wrapped them thus after he knew, after he had come to know him well enough to understand that it would be he, Thursday, who would be the one to come up here and uncover this web of deceit.

It was a message left just for him—a taunt, even— and the force of the realization hit him with such shock, that he felt for a moment as if, rather than a stack of photos, he held a snake in his hands.

 

It was as if his game was somehow personal.

 

Which, perhaps, it was.

 

Like the handful of psychopaths that Thursday had had the misfortune to run across during his years on the job, the killer was driven not by love or by passion or by hate or by revenge—but only by a need to control. To place himself at center, or even above all.

The passage of that novel that he had underlined, asserting that a painting is a portrait of the artist, a reflection of his own personality, rather than that of the object portrayed, the art thefts, the murders, had all been a part of his own pet project, an attempt to put all of his being into a painting, to preserve himself for eternity, to control the course of his life to the point that he might cheat death.

But he was done with paintings now, it seemed, done with trying to control the course of his life and his death. Now, for reasons best known only to him, he had switched course; it was not his _own_ life he sought to control, but someone else’s.

Morse’s.

The man was mad, but perhaps, even in his madness, he had one sliver of the human condition still within him—the yearning to find another, to find someone else like him, to belong.

It was even more perverse, considering the number of people he had killed so blithely, without any purpose other than his own sick game, that he might still seek companionship.

But could it be that he had he seen in Morse—either through looking through his records and history, or through their combative first meeting at the nick—something he perceived as a reflection of himself?

 

_“To be clever is to be alone.”_

 

Morse had said that the man had been relieved to find him.

 

_“'I see it in you. The same intelligence,' he said.”_

 

That he had said that they were just alike.  

 

“ _He wanted me to talk to him. He said he would understand me. He said he was the only one who would ever understand me.”_

 

In which case, this date on the paper, this word _Thursday_ circled in blue ink, _was_ a message, a message for him.

 

While the killer had been doing his utmost to convince Morse that he was too damaged, too different, too other, to fit into the world, Thursday and his family had been working to help Morse find his way back into it.

 

It _was_ personal. A contest held between them.

 

And so far, the bastard was winning, staying always one step ahead of him.

 

Or maybe he wasn’t.

 

For, in this case, the object of their battle, after all, was not an object to be manipulated—as the killer seemed to think—but a man who had rediscovered how to think for himself, a man who had no intention of being contained and controlled as he had been before.

 

Morse had known that he was right and he had stuck to his guns, even in the face of all of the holes that Jakes had made in his own prior theories, even slamming the phone down on him, Thursday, when it seemed as if he might not believe him.

 

The killer might be one step ahead of him, of Thursday.

But Thursday felt still that the game was half-won. Because the man had made a fatal mistake.

The killer didn’t realize that Morse was most likely one step ahead of him.

*************

It was with a sinking feeling that Thursday searched the grounds.

As he approached an abandoned well at the back of the property, the air grew heavy, rank and thick with the smell of decay.

It was a terrible thing. The woman had no doubt seen many things, had worked hard, had been working still, caring for a well-to-do doctor’s mother, a woman who was most likely not too many years older than she herself was.

It was cruel that she should meet such an end simply because she knew that the man who had come to Mrs. Cronyn’s door was not the lady's son, but an imposter. 

 

Because if Mrs. Johnson _did_ have a daughter in Edinburgh, Thursday doubted very much that she ever reached her.

 

He called in his findings to the Peterborough police and then sped back to Oxford with two of the photographs.

He didn’t know where Morse was, or what he was up to.

But with the information he had garnered, and with the photographs, he would be able to convince Mr. Bright—who could in turn convince Chief Constable Standish—to start working with him, rather than against him.

**********

It was well into the afternoon when Thursday made it back to the nick, the light already beginning to fall in a mid-autumn golden slant through the smudged windows. He was heading down the narrow hall, ready to confer with Jakes and Mr. Bright about what he had discovered, when he noticed Miss Frazil camped out on the narrow bench just outside the CID’s main doors.

That was odd. Usually she sent some fresh-faced eager girl or boy cub reporter over to sit on such a stake-out. But, perhaps, what with all of the events of the past few weeks, Miss Frazil had decided— as he had earlier that day—that if you wanted to be sure a job was done correctly, it would be better to do it yourself.

After all, between the serial killer and the mad constable on the loose, the Cowley CID held her whole front page, right there.

Well. He had no time for any of that right now.

“I don’t have any information for you, Miss Frazil,” he said, curtly, already putting a hand to the door.

She raised one perfect eyebrow. “Is that so, Inspector?” she said. “Well. In that case, I might have some information for you.”

 

She said the words so coolly, that Thursday couldn’t help but pause.

 

“I just had a visit earlier today. From a friend of yours, who was singing a very different tune. He had quite a bit of information to share. And he asked me to deliver it. Specifically, to you.”

Thursday startled. A friend “singing a different tune,” could be a veiled reference only to one person, the person whose singing she had reviewed not long ago in an article in the Oxford Mail. 

“Would you mind stepping into my office, Miss Frazil?” he asked.

She shot him and amused look, as if to say, _“my, now so polite, are we?”_ and then she rose from the bench.  

*******

As soon as Thursday guided Miss Frazil into the CID, his eyes fell on Jakes, who was sitting at his desk, watching him, his heavy eyebrows raised in question. Thursday gave him a pointed nod and then gestured with a jerk of his head for him to accompany them to his office.

 

Once the door was closed behind them, Miss Frazil pulled a newspaper from her bag and handed it to him. Thursday read the folded page with Jakes beside him, reading over his shoulder.

It was a brief story, told only in two columns, about a fifteen-year-old boy named Mason Gull, who, back in ’44, at the Wolvercote Inn, an old guest house owned by his family, came into a room where his mother was playing the piano one morning and then ...

.... drove an axe into the back of her skull.  

“It sounds just like the story Dr. Cronyn told us about …..” Jakes began.

“Keith Miller,” Thursday supplied. 

Jakes furrowed his brow. “Why would Dr. Cronyn change the name?” he asked.

 _“Dr. Cronyn_ didn’t,” Thursday said, pointedly.

“Sir?” Jakes asked.

“I don’t know who that man is, who has been feeding us all of this, but he’s not Dr. Cronyn. I just came back from Peterborough. _This_ ,” he said, passing Jakes one of the photographs, “is the _real_ Dr. Cronyn.”

“But his mother said …. the neighbors....” Jakes protested.

“His poor mother is long gone with dementia. The neighbors just moved house—they never met the real Dr. Cronyn before, so they didn’t know any different. And the old woman who cared for Dr. Cronyn’s mother, the only person who _would_ have known the difference, is dead at the bottom of the well.”

 

Jakes looked at him in shock.

“Jesus,” he hissed, under his breath.

 

Thursday turned to Miss Frazil, then, considering her thoughtfully. He did not like to say these things with her, there, but they had lost enough time as it was.

 

“This stays between us,” he told her, even though it was not for him, he realized, to dictate terms, since it was she who had provided Morse with this new information.

 

But he hoped that she would understand. She must have had _some_ sympathy for Morse’s plight to have helped him uncover this, to have come out this far to deliver Morse’s message. Thursday knew Miss Frazil of old—she could be a tough customer, it was true, but she wasn’t unkind.

“Just . . . ” he added, and here, he changed his tone from a demand into a plea. “Just until the lad’s back safe. That’s all I’m asking.”

She nodded. “Forty-eight hours,” she said. 

He nodded his agreement and his thanks.  

 

“So who is that man, if he’s not Cronyn? And who is this Keith Miller we’ve been running around after?” Jakes asked.

“Your constable’s got the answer for that, too,” Miss Frazil said.  

 

She handed Thursday a piece of paper then—and the Inspector immediately felt a jolt at the sight of the familiar handwriting, at the sight of that neat back slant print—the handwriting he knew to be Morse’s.

 

The paper held only a handful of words:   

 

KEITH MILLER

IM THE KILLER

 

For a moment, Thursday stared at it in stark disbelief.

 

It was an anagram, then, just like the one Gull had set for Morse in the search for the missing child.

 

“He’s the killer,” Thursday said.

“He’s Mason Gull,” Jakes said.

 

They looked at one another and said nothing, allowing the awful truth to sink in.  

 

“Where is he?” Thursday asked then. “Morse?”

“He didn’t say,” Miss Frazil said. “He only said he was going to see a friend.”

 

Thursday huffed a rueful laugh.

 

Well. Only one guess as to who that could be.

 

If Morse was going all the way to Lake Silence, he was most likely cutting through the woods, so that he could travel unseen.

 

“When did you see him last?” Thursday asked.

“Just an hour or so ago,” Miss Frazil said.

 

It would take Morse quite a while to hoof it all the way out to Lake Silence on foot, but the lad, he was sure, would be all right. He was on his own familiar ground, and on his guard. He knew just who it was to watch out for—had known since yesterday, in fact—whereas the others were all just now cottoning on.

To get from the offices of the Oxford Mail to Lake Silence, Morse would have to cross the old wooded road at some point, the road the circled around the lake’s circumference.

It wasn’t far from Wolvercote.

They had time, then, before going out to intercept Morse, to make a side trip first. They owed it to what other victims might be held there, at the Gull Family’s old inn.

But first, they had to convince Mr. Bright as to the truth of what was happening. Of what _had_ been happening, all along. 

*********

 

Mr. Bright sat at his desk, with the newspaper and the photographs and Morse’s note strewn across his desk.

“Good heavens,” he whispered.

But the look of utter shock on his wizened face was quickly replaced by a sharp and steely one. The Chief Superintendent was a stickler for the rules, and could be loyal to Division to a fault, it was true. But he was a good man, really. One who made it a point of honor to make those who served under him always his first priority.

And this time, he seemed to realize, he had failed in that.

But from the set of his jaw, Thursday was sure that he had repented of that now; he was certain that Mr. Bright was on their side.

Although, once Thursday took the time to think about it, it struck him as odd— almost ominous—that there should be any question of sides within the force at all.

********

Along the stone walkway that led up to the door stood an old wrought-iron sign, creaking in the wind with an unearthly screech, the only sound that broke the fugue of silence that encircled the forgotten old place.

 

“Wolvercote Inn,” the large brass letters on the sign proclaimed, the single testament to what must have been its former glory. The broad-fronted house, a long, brick two-story expanse bookended by two towers, nestled deep in weeds and overgrown lilacs, had about it that look of faded gentility, of a place that had once been grand, but now was merely gothic—all groaning door hinges and cracks in the brickwork, tumults of overgrown ivy covering the windows, obscuring the light.

Before going up the crumbling steps to the double front doors, Thursday, Jakes, Strange and Fancy marched around the circumference of the inn, taking note of any doors and exits. WPC Trewlove remained with the cars—ready to notify the information room of any new discoveries they might make at the old house, and ready to call in for back up, if needed.

As the four began their quiet walk through the high grass, littered with slate tiles that had fallen from the roof, a sharp sound, like a high-pitched wail, made them stop in their tracks and look up; but it was only the overhanging branch of a solitary oak tree, scraping along the glass of one of the upstairs windows.

 

“Look here,” Strange said, then, walking over briskly, away from the others, to where a clump of lilac bushes had been smashed, the leaves and top branches crushed, as if some heavy object had fallen into them.

At once, the four looked up—on the second story, right above the spot, was a window that had been partially obscured by boards. Along the bottom of the window, a small section of wood had been pulled away, and the glass broken, leaving a space just large enough for someone as wiry as . . .

“Morse,” Jakes said simply, studying the window.

And they all of them knew what he meant. This must be the place where Morse had dropped down from window.

Thursday narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the brick, and then, he saw it—a faint smear of blood on the outside wall, as if someone had placed a hand there for balance before falling to the ground.

 

There was a door at the back of the house that opened stiffly as they turned the knob, and Strange remained there, to keep guard on it, lest their quarry try to use it to escape, while the other three circled ‘round again and went in through the front doors.

 

They walked together through empty rooms echoing with the ghosts of grander days. There was a baby grand piano in one corner, surrounded by a scatter of music scores that had fallen to the floor, the edges of which had been nibbled on by mice. Dusty tables held tarnished silver candelabras fitted with the stubs of half-burned candles, and a curio cabinet was filled with china figurines of girls in flounced dresses, delicate trifles that once must have seemed to be charming little knickknacks, but which now looked sinister—all white faces and empty painted eyes—in the gloomy light.

The three of them parted ways after passing through the main rooms, fanning out to more quickly cover the expansive house, one that looked for the most part to be utterly untouched, utterly abandoned, with no sign of Gull anywhere about the place.

In a small parlor at the back of the house, Thursday at last found signs of life. The place had been spruced up and dusted, and there was a fresh, new tea set on the coffee table along with newspapers—recent ones—spread out, flipped and folded to stories following the case—the thefts, the murders, the kidnapping of James Mills, Morse’s abduction and return.

 

And, most telling of all, was a large painting, hung in a place of honor above the fireplace—Edward Burne-Jones’ Angel 1881.

 

On another low table rested a modern box record player, standing out anachronistically against the antiquities found in the rest of the house. Stacked beside it lay a collection of opera albums, all quite new, the cardboard of the covers still pristine.  

Thursday stood for a while, contemplating the room with a growing sense of revulsion, when Jakes came in behind him and stopped short.

“He’s been here,” Jakes said.

“Of course he has,” Thursday answered. “This has been his bolt hole.”  

His words were wrought from him with a snarl of disgust. It was sick, this place. Thursday felt a twist in his gut at the sight of it all—the cups, the painting, the records, the attempt at coziness that was far more repulsive than the eerie negligence of the rest of the house.

 

It was as if Gull was preparing some sort of home here, one for two princes in their exile. It felt like nothing so much as a twisted parody of what he and his family had done, when Morse had first come to stay with them—getting the spare bed from Win’s sister and the extra wardrobe down from the attic, picking up the lad’s old trunk from Lincolnshire and the new records from Woolworths.’

Even the idea that Gull had set the lad painting something here in this house seemed like a perverted sort of reversal  of what his Win had done, blithely ignoring Morse’s odd little trips back and forth to the shed, allowing him to do what he would do their spare bedroom, giving him free reign to make it his own.

Thursday turned away and went out of the room, over to where the wide staircase swept up to the second floor, Jakes following a few steps behind. They climbed the steps and marked their way along a hallway, passing bedrooms where guests once stayed—still furnished with four poster beds, dusty nightstands, curtains going to rot. The walls of each room were covered in peeling Victorian wallpaper—and water must have gotten into a few of them too, for the place smelled of wet plaster and decay and then . . . . of copper, too.

 

Jakes looked at him sharply.

 

In the next room, a four-poster bed stood, stripped to its bare white sheets.

 

White sheets covered in hundreds of speckles of bright red blood.

 

They walked inside, and found, on the bedside table, a collection of syringes and vials, all neatly lined out in a row.

“Morphine,” Thursday said.

 

Jakes went over to the fireplace mantle and pulled down a wallet that sat on top, flipping it open.

“Dr. Daniel Cronyn, I presume,” he said, looking at the picture on the driver’s license inside and then holding it up to Thursday. And, sure enough, it was him—the dark-haired man whose life he had seen passing by in the photographs hidden in the drawer of the old desk at his mother’s house.

“The real Dr. Daniel Cronyn,” Thursday confirmed. “This is where he kept him. He kept him drugged up, on morphine to keep him quiet.”

 “Why not just kill him straightaway?” Jakes asked.

“Because the body at the consulting rooms had to be fresh,” Thursday said.

 

Jakes turned away, making a small noise of disgust.

 

And who could blame him?

 

And then it struck Thursday: the poor man must have been here all along, held hostage, even while Morse was locked up somewhere else about the place.

 

“Morse never hears about this,” he said, then, to Jakes, shortly. “Is that understood, sergeant?”

 

If Morse ever found out there had been another prisoner here, one he had left behind the night he escaped, he would never let it go. He’d beat himself up about it from here to kingdom come. He’d never let it recede in the rearview mirror.

Although what could Morse have done? It seemed as if the lad had barely made it out himself. How could he have gotten to the unconscious man at all, let alone have carried him all the way back to Botley Road?

 

“Sir,” Jakes said.

 

They stepped smartly out of the room, as if to shake the dust of the awful place from their shoes as they went. They would need to give word to WPC Trewlove to call in for Dr. DeBryn. There was no body here any longer, but it was possible that the doctor would be able to tell from the bloodstains approximately how long the man had been held here.  

They went along the corridor, then, and were searching other rooms for other victims, when they heard a loud cry.

 

“What the hell?”

 

It was Fancy. Jakes and Thursday exchanged glances and hurried off down the hall.

 

Thursday had been glad that Fancy had been elsewhere in the house, that the boy had been spared that grisly scene, but from the constable’s cry of shock and surprise, it sounded as if he had stumbled upon something else, some other scene of madness.

 

“Sir? Look at this!”

 

They took long strides down the twisting corridors, following the sound of Fancy’s voice, and then turned a final corner, where they found him standing in the hallway, looking, dumbfounded, into a bedroom.

He turned to them at their approach and shook his head. “The man must be mad,” he said.

 

Thursday stepped deftly over to the door, expecting the worst, corpses or another bed awash with blood . . .

 

. . . . but, instead, the place was a carnage of paint.

 

On the floor, several large cans had been spilled, tipped over to create large pools of color on the carpet, and, in the places where the thick puddles met, the colors had been swirled and mixed into varying shades, as if someone had turned the very floor into a giant artist’s palette.

But the state of the floor was nothing compared to that of the walls. They had all been painted an incendiary red—a color so sharp that it was impossible for the eye to look upon it without the vague feeling of a burning at the retinas—and against the red, a forest of black trees stood shattered, imploding into splinted bits sharp as broken glass. Along the edges of the floor, tall grasses, painted in dark green and black and muddy blue, waved wildly, as if blasted by an impossible wind, and birds, their wings smeared as if they were half-melting, fell like stones, like death, from out of the blood red sky.

 

“Christ,” Jakes muttered, taking a step into the room.

 

And right away, Thursday realized what it was he was seeing. The splinters of black wood that had broken and shattered from the trees were not mere shards of wood—but numbers painted in a fine brush, numbers and symbols and calculations, and . . . .  

 

Oh, hell.

 

Thursday and Jakes exchanged knowing glances, and he knew right away what his sergeant was thinking.

Would they have to call in Special Branch to clean this up?

 

It may seem like mad nonsense to most who might stumble in here, but in the hands of the wrong person….

 

Thursday put a hand to his face and rubbed his tired eyes.

 

He wasn’t sure quite what happened, but he thought that he could imagine it all too well. Suddenly, his mind was flooded with another image, not one of red, but of white, of Morse sitting on his living room floor, in a nest of papers, working in a frenzy—until Thursday had stopped him, leaving Morse to look around at the mess before him, as if he had not realized what it was he had been doing.

_“I am become death the shatterer of worlds.”_

 

 

Thursday walked further into the room, then, to where a narrow interior door stood half ajar. He opened it, and found a large storage area, smelling faintly of paint, as if it had not too long ago been painted stark white. And on the white walls, were smears of blood, as if someone had been beating on the walls hard enough so as to break them down, to flee, to escape.

Thursday remembered, then, something that Morse had shouted at Cronyn.

 

_“You bastard! You knew all! You left me in that closet on purpose!”_

 

Thursday scowled. Morse must have woken up then, here, in this space. And for a moment, he thought he was right back at Clive Durrells.’

And so, right from the get-go, Morse had begun to unravel.

It wasn’t long, then, with such a beginning, that being held here as he had been held captive once before became too much for the lad. And all of this—the formulas and the calculations—had all come pouring out.

Thursday looked at the window, the two boards on the floor that had been torn away, the shatter of broken glass, and, again, suddenly he knew.

Eventually, Morse had come back to himself, and looked about, horrified at what he had done. And so he turned his attention to the window, until he had managed to pry a few boards free, leaving a space just large enough for him to climb through.

And then he dropped to the ground and started running.

 

“What _is_ all of this?” Fancy asked. “I thought the madman wanted _Morse_ to paint something.”

Thursday turned at once to see Constable Fancy scanning the walls, open-mouthed in surprise. He exchanged another look with Jakes, who knew all too well who had painted this, who knew all too well what it all meant, and then, he all but pushed Fancy out the door, before the constable had the chance to make out the fact that the chaos of splintered wood was not only an explosion of trees, but the formula for Doomsday.

 

“What? What is it?” Fancy asked, confused, no doubt by the dark look on Thursday’s face.

“We need to get going,” he said, shortly, cutting the question off.  “It’s time to pick up Morse.”

 

**********

 Jakes had never seen the old man quite so flustered. It was a bizarre case, through and through, that much was certain. But Jakes was given to understand that, for Thursday, it was personal as well.

Jakes wasn’t sure how Thursday could be quite so confident as to where Morse was headed, nor how he seemed so sure that he could calculate approximately how long it would take him to get there. He seemed convinced that Morse was cutting through the woods to Lake Silence, that if they patrolled the tree-lined road that bordered the south side of the lake, he would be bound to cross their path, that they would be certain to intercept him.

 

It was decided that Strange and Trewlove would wait with one car for Dr. DeBryn—and for the uniformed officers who would be set to guard the place from intruders and curiosity-seekers, lest the site be disturbed—and that he, Thursday and Fancy would take the other car, the black Jag, to go out and find Morse.

 

“Shouldn’t we take two cars?” Jakes asked. “Might be more likely to find him that way. We could take one and Fancy could take the other.”  

“Nah,” Thursday said. “Morse can bulldoze Fancy.”

 

“Hey!” Fancy blurted, leading Thursday to round on him at once.

 

“Sir,” Fancy added, more meekly.  

 

It was true enough, what Thursday had said, but privately, Jakes thought that the Inspector was making a mistake.

 Sure, Morse could bulldoze Fancy. But that made it all the more likely—in Jakes’ opinion—that Morse might _stop_ for Fancy.

Morse might be more likely to talk to Fancy than to them, to check in and exchange information with him, to give his partner at least an inkling of what he was up to—because Jakes was sure that Morse was up to _somethin_ g—knowing that Fancy would allow him to go on his way again, knowing that he _could_ bulldoze him—knowing that he would not be rounded up before he was ready, brought in against his will.

It wasn’t that Morse didn’t trust Thursday. Obviously, he did, since he had asked Miss Frazil to deliver those papers to him specifically. But he didn’t trust the system. Morse had learned that Thursday was not all-powerful. That there were others, far above Thursday, who were invested in the case.

 

ACC Clive Deare for one.

 

It made no sense, really, the way that Division had seemed to make Morse out to be public enemy number one, what with a serial killer on the loose.

Morse might trust Thursday, but he didn’t trust Division, and he didn’t trust Deare.

And who could blame him?

Jakes didn’t trust Deare either.

Deare, in fact, made his skin crawl.

 

Jakes had no idea what in the hell Morse was planning: but he knew one thing—he would not surrender himself to the authorities until he had proof positive that his story was true. He would not risk being tossed into Bellevue again.

In short: Morse would not come in until Gull was safely nicked.

 

And so they drove up and down, up and down, the same five-mile stretch of road, in some sort of mad parody of a family car trip— he the calm and collected father at the wheel, the old man the unlikeliest of mother hens, keeping a sharp watch out the window, Fancy, the dutiful son, perched in the back seat as they searched for his trouble maker of a brother, the kid who had gotten bored and wandered off at the rest stop.

After forty minutes, the old man began to fidget in his seat, agitated, no doubt, by the thought that they had lingered too long at the inn, that they might have missed Morse.

But then, in the distance, a man emerged out of the trees, a man with a strangely shadowed face, wearing a bulky tweed suit.

God, Morse was green. In the oversized suit, with his reddish hair absolutely wild, Jakes might not have even recognized him as Morse, if he had not stopped to stand in the road, staring in horror at the Jag in obvious recognition.

Jakes sped up, moving quickly enough to catch up with him, but not so quickly as to startle him, as to send him running off.

As they approached, Jakes came to understand why he had not recognized Morse right away. The odd shadows that made his eyes to appear to be more deep-set then they really were, were actually the blossoms of two rather impressive bruises, spreading across his face like a blue-purple robber's mask.

“Goddammit,” Thursday snarled. “It’s looks like that bastard of an orderly used his face as a goddamned  _punching bag._ ”  

 

Morse, meanwhile, continued to stand in the road and stare at them, startled and still, like a deer in the headlights.

And then, suddenly, he turned and veered off, making a break for it and disappearing off into the trees on the other side.

 

“Goddammit,” Thursday cursed again. “Speed up a bit, sergeant,” he commanded.

Jakes did so, hitting the gas until they reached the point where Morse had run off into the woods.

“Stop here,” the old man shouted, and then he threw open the car door before Jakes had even fully stopped the car.

He swung his bulk out of the Jag and strode off into the trees, then, like an angry bull, crashing through the bramble.

 

“Morse!” he shouted. “Time to come in and talk, lad!”

 

Jakes and Fancy ambled out of the Jag and went over to join him.

 

 _“Morse!_ It’s _over_! You’ve had your run! I got the newspaper!” Thursday shouted.

But it was all in vain.

For there was nothing, not even a stir of a branch. It seemed as if Morse was already long gone.

 

Thursday stood for a moment, scowling into the woods, and then he began to mutter angrily, under his breath.  

 

“So that’s how we’re playing this then? Goddammit. Straight to Tony, is it? Fine. We’ll just meet him there, then.”

 

“Let’s get going, sergeant,” Thursday barked, then, to him.  “Two miles up and take a left, first road you see." 

“Sir,” Jakes said.

 

“Christ,” Thursday snarled, once he had gotten back into the car. “Now he’s got to get that blasted Tony into this. Wonderful.”

 

Jakes raised his eyebrows and started up the car. There was something strangely familiar there in the old man’s grumbling, but Jakes couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

 

They were about a mile up the road when it hit him: the way Inspector Thursday had muttered darkly about Anthony Donn was much the same way in which, just a few months back, he had spoken of Ronnie Gildderton, that manager from the bank, the one who seemed to have his eye on Joan.

Jakes snorted softly, as the realization hit him.

He knew that Morse and the earl were friends from when they were up, but... did Morse really think he could show up at His Lordship's country manor house in such a state, that the man would help him _that_ unconditionally?

 

Oh, Christ.

 

Jakes found he had to repress a laugh. It would be funny as hell if some awkward misfit of a constable with two black eyes had managed to snap up “Britain’s most eligible bachelor.”

 

Well, there was no accounting for tastes among the posh set.

And who could figure Morse out?

Jakes was certain that he never would.

 


	16. Chapter 16

Jakes pulled the black Jag into the circular drive of Marston Hall, and straightaway the old man got out of the car, bounding up to the front door as if he owned the place.

He was up the steps in six strides, jabbing his finger at a black button in the center of a brass filigree holder, sending off a cascade of chiming bells that Jakes could hear all the way through the heavy door, as he and Fancy followed, coming to a rest just behind him.

 

In just a few moments, a tall man in a livery opened the door.

“Ah. Inspector Thursday,” he said.

 

Jesus. Inspector Thursday had been out here on account of Morse so many times now, it seemed as if Donn’s butler not only recognized the guv’nor on sight, but had actually been half-expecting him.

 

“We need to speak to the earl,” Thursday said, curtly, walking into the grand foyer, without waiting for further invitation.

“Of course, sir,” the butler said.

But there was no need for the man to go and fetch him, because, just then, Anthony Donn came gliding into the foyer, looking haughty as hell, replete with that generally dissatisfied air that those of the blueblood set seemed able to exude by the bucketful—especially when they were in a bad temper and didn’t know quite where to place the blame.

 

“What exactly is going on, Inspector?” Donn said, hotly. “It’s all over the radio. They’ve made Pagan to sound like some sort of _defective_ , like an absolute _lunatic_. Where has this manhunt been the last few weeks for the Pre-Raphaelite killer?”

 

Donn had a point, there: It was true that the situation had gotten out of hand. It was almost enough to make Jakes wonder if Morse had managed to make some enemies somewhere amongst the higher-ups—and he would believe that that was, indeed, the case, if it wasn’t for the fact that Morse had been on the force for only a few months.

Oh, what was he thinking?

In Morse’s case, that might be long enough, really.

 

“I can get everything cleared up,” Thursday said. “But Morse needs to cut it out right now and come in. Now. Tell him that Miss Frazil delivered that newspaper. Tell him that I went up to Peterborough and that I know the truth.”

Anthony Donn looked at the old man as if he hadn’t ever quite seen anything like him before.

“I’d be only too happy to, Inspector. If only I had the slightest inkling as to where he was,” he said.

“Don’t give me that rot,” Thursday replied. “We saw him cut across the road not a half hour ago.”

 

Then the Inspector wheeled round and shouted in the general direction of the stairs sweeping up to the second floor.

 

“Morse!” he boomed. “It’s over! It’s time to come in and talk this out!”

 

There was no answer.

 

“Morse! You aren’t helping the situation by running, lad!”

 

And still, there was nothing but silence.

 

“Goddammit,” Thursday said, rounding once more on Donn. “Will you tell him just to _talk_ to me, for god’s sake? I won’t let anything happen. This can all be sorted out, just like I said.”

 

Jakes raised an eyebrow. Would it really be that easy? Jakes wasn’t so sure. Morse certainly had made a hash of things.

 

“I can’t do that,” Donn said. “He isn’t here.”

“Oh, he isn’t, is he?” Thursday asked. “Well then. I don’t suppose you’ll mind if we have a little look-see, then?”

Donn’s face was impassive as he regarded them. “Search away, Inspector,” he said, airily. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other things to do besides answer endless inquiries from the police. Really,” he sniffed. “I ought to open my own _precinct_ out here.”

And then he turned and left them there, standing in the foyer, as if he really didn’t give a good goddamn if they searched the house for Morse or not.

 

Which seemed a good indication that he wasn’t there, after all.  

Although there certainly was no end of places to hide in a house like this.

 

Thursday jerked his head in a silent command for them to begin their search, and then the three of them headed off in three different directions, fanning out through Anthony Donn’s immaculate manor house in much the same way as they had through the groaning old Wolvercote Inn.

 

Jakes went through a labyrinth of rooms, finally stumbling upon a canary yellow conservatory—a room gleaming with two glossy grand pianos and bright with lamps lit against the falling darkness outside—and looked about.

“Morse?” he called.

It crossed Jakes’ mind that Morse might be anywhere, the gangly buggar, even standing hidden behind the long peacock blue drapes. But it was certainly beneath the dignity of a detective sergeant to go and search behind them, like a child playing at hide-and-seek.

If Morse was somewhere in the house, it would be far better for him if he just came out and spoke to them, acted rationally for once in his thickheaded life. Running was not making him look good.

And so he said just that, to the thin air, in the off-chance that Morse was in earshot.

“You aren’t helping yourself, Morse.”

There was no reply, but nor did Jakes expect there to be.

 

He took a turn about the conservatory, then, and continued on through a sky-blue parlor, and then into a library with shelves lined with books reaching from the floor to ceiling. There, he found Fancy, not helping at all in the search, but rather lolling about on a window seat, laughing as he flipped through a photograph album.

“Look at this,” he said, seemingly delighted.

He turned the open page toward Jakes, revealing an old photo of Morse, one that must have dated to his Oxford days. In it, his face was slightly fuller, and he was dressed in an evening suit, standing next to a cool blonde in a long gown; they were both leaning in slightly toward one another, posing, as if they were definitely a couple.

“Who would have thought that Morse could pull _that_ off, huh?” Fancy asked.

Jakes shrugged. She was a good-looking girl, whoever she was.

So. Maybe Morse did go for the birds, then. Or maybe he was one of those types who didn’t mind, either way.

Which was perhaps wise, on Morse’s part.

If you were as big of a disaster as he was, if a train came into your station, you didn’t question what wheel arrangement it had. You simply got on, and were grateful for the lift.

 

Jakes shook his head and looked around the place, taking it all in: the warm glow of the crackling fire in the grate, the richness of the maple shelving and the green and red and blue morocco leather-bound books, the deep armchairs and the plush Persian carpet.

He couldn’t blame Morse, really, if he _was_ somewhere about the place.

If someone were to take _him_ away, off to a manor house on a lake, or to a tropical island on blue seas, or out to a country where the fields ran under big skies for as far as the eye could see, Jakes would jump at the chance.

 

But then, when did Morse ever do things the easy way?

It didn’t seem like Morse—always so damned stroppy, always so determined to do it all on his own—to come and hide here.

And then Jakes remembered it, the conversation he had had with Morse just the day before.

 

_“Mmmm,” Morse said. “And what about this party? Strange said there was a party at . . . Bixby’s? That he’d been called in on detail?”_

_“Yeah, the man must be mad. He says he planned it in commemoration of some posh gala, some art exhibition held a hundred years ago. That the invitations had gone out long ago.”_

 

_Morse sat bolt upright in his seat._

 

_“What exhibition?” he asked._

_“I dunno, Morse.”_

_Morse laughed ruefully. “Not Ernest Gambart’s party?”_

_“That might have been it, yeah.”_

_“But . . . . but that wasn’t a hundred years ago. That was in May 1866,” Morse snapped._

_“Close enough, he figures, I suppose,” Jakes said. “Why? What of it?"_

_“Ernest Gambart was an art dealer in London who, a little more than a hundred years ago, proclaimed he was throwing the party of the season, a party revolving around a showing of a painting.  “The Finding of the Savior in the Temple,” by William Holman Hunt.”_

_“Yeah, that’s the to-do Bright mentioned. Mad, eh? To have a party featuring a Pre-Raphaelite painting right in the middle of this mess?”_

 

_Morse snorted. “I’d say so. Considering that that party ended in disaster. Gambart hired a theatrical gaslighting expert for the occasion, to set a certain mood for the evening, and to show the large canvas to its full effect. Only someone lit a match, and the place blew sky high.”_

 

_Jakes frowned._

 

 _“He doesn’t have_ that _painting, does he? Bixby?” Morse asked. “There’s a child in that painting.”_

_“No, it’s some other one.”_

_“What other one?”_

_“I don’t know, Morse. Jesus. No one at the station thinks it’s a spectacular idea, obviously, but no one can stop some rich bastard from throwing a party. It’s seems awfully dim to me. It’s almost as if he’s begging the killer to come.”_

_“Mmmmmm,” Morse said._

 

_He was silent for a moment._

 

_Then he said, “I need to go to Lake Silence.”_

 

 

And then, Jakes realized: Of course, Morse hadn’t come here.

Morse wasn’t running.

He was out on an inquiry.

 

“Sir?” Jakes called, and then he headed out of the room, looking for Thursday.

**********

Morse crashed through the trees, not stopping to look behind him. He was close to it, so close to the truth of it all—he just knew it.  He could not afford to let them stop him now. He had to find a place where he could hide, a place to seek refuge from all of those uniformed officers on the street who now—rather than concentrating on following leads that might help them to apprehend the killer—all seemed to be searching for _him_ , the runaway patient from Bellevue.

It was all just how that man had planned it, everything turned upside down.

Not only was Gull in control, but he had managed to isolate him, to make him to realize that all that he had told him was true.  
  


That Morse was, indeed, alone.

 

But that man had been so busy turning Morse’s colleagues against him, planting false trails that he knew only too well Morse would follow, twisting his words around so as to make him to seem irrational, even faking his own _death_ , that he didn’t stop to consider whether Morse might have somewhere else to go, someone else to turn to, someone who might help him to sort through the evidence, to help him come up with a theory that would fit, a theory that would solve the cases.

 

Both of them.

 

Morse had no time to waste; all too well he remembered what he had blurted out to Jakes in the car.

 

_“I need to go to Lake Silence.”_

 

If Jakes remembered what he had said, they might well be pursuing him even here, even in the depths of the woods.

 

And so, he kept running, flying over fallen logs, moving as fast as a bounding deer under the heavy fir branches, endeavoring to get to the great house before they might apprehend him.

 

Morse had just reached the most treacherous point of his journey—the point where he must cut across the open road that wove around the circumference of the lake, when he saw it: the black police Jag, right there, right down the road, heading straight toward him, ready to waylay him. As it grew nearer, Morse could make out that it was Sergeant Jakes and Inspector Thursday there, sitting in the front seat.

It was a like a nightmare. Jakes _had_ remembered, it seemed. Just like Gull, they seemed to know exactly what he would do and when.

 

Even Jakes, then, even Thursday, were a part of the search.

 

For a moment, Morse could do nothing but to stand in the road, dumbfounded, as the car approached. He willed his feet to move, but they would not; he could only stand there, as if frozen, stunned by the shock of it.

 

They _knew_. They were following his every step.

 

Then, finally, mercifully, he managed to tear himself away, to turn and run, disappearing into the trees, flying as fast as he could into the dark canopy of firs, his lungs burning brightly in the falling autumn light.

He could hear Thursday shouting as he darted across the rocks of a small brook, and then he ran on, his feet pounding step by step, across a dappled carpet of leaves, his long shadow moving over the rich palette of the forest floor—a scattering of fire red and of amber and of goldenrod.

 

"A man should be big enough to admit when he was wrong," Mr. Bright had said.  

And it was true. He, Morse, _had_ been wrong, but not about Dr. Cronyn.

It was the in case of Frida Yelland where he had gone wrong.

 

He had to uncover the truth. And when he did, Thursday would understand; he wouldn’t be angry with him anymore. Morse was sure of it.

But, to get the answers he needed, he would have to get to the great stone house before Jakes and Thursday did.

And he would have to convince Joss Bixby to give him cover there, to give him time, to help him to fill in the blanks.

 

Morse broke out through the edge of the trees and then hesitated, right on the threshold of the lawns of Bixby’s palace of a house. He spun around, his heart racing, looking for the black Jag, looking for Thursday, half-expecting him to come storming out of the parked car.

But there was no sign of the car, or of any of them. Somehow, against all odds, he had managed to outrun them, to reach the house before they did, even though it had seemed impossible.  

 

And then Morse realized.

That was because they were not coming here.

 

They were going to Tony’s.

 

Morse felt his stomach drop and twist, with a pang of regret.

Well, farewell love and all thy laws forever, then.

If that’s what, indeed, it had been. Morse would hardly know.

Because it was all over, over before it even started, whatever it was. And not only that, but even their friendship, too, must surely be finished.

For how could Tony ever forgive him for drawing the police yet _again_ to his door?

Perhaps it _was_ true, what Gull had said. That he was fated, always, to be alone.

 

Or perhaps it was not too late. Perhaps he could apologize, at least salvage some _part_ of their friendship. Surely Tony could see that this was not his fault, that he didn’t especially _want_ this to happen?

 

But, first things first. Before Morse could make amends, he would have to get himself the hell out of this mess.

He took off then, breaking again into run, cutting across the lush green lawns and then up the broad sweeping front steps of Bixby’s great house.

He rang the bell, casting one last look over his shoulder for signs of the Jag. He wasn’t sure what to wish for—that Jakes and Thursday _had_ gone out to Marston Hall, and that he would, indeed, have time to talk to Bixby, or that they were hot on his heels after all, and not descending upon poor Tony.

 

In a few moments, a butler answered the door.  

“I need to talk to Bixby,” Morse said, all in a rush. 

The man looked him up and down—and god only knew what he must look like, in the rumpled, ill-fitting suit, with his hair wild and his face flushed red from running. Not to mention that he rather suspected, both from Miss Frazil’s comment and from the dull ache around his eyes and the stinging one across the bridge of his nose, that his face must be black and blue from where that brute of an orderly had hit him during his escape. 

 

The butler, however, ushered him in, and, it turned out, he didn’t even need to lead him to Bixby—because, as soon as Morse stepped inside, Bixby was there, shaking his head of dark hair as he sailed into the room .... wearing of all things, a lightweight suit of armor.

“Ah. Morse. There you are,” he said.

 

Then he stopped and looked at him, eyeing him up and down and frowning.

 

“What are you _wearing_?” Bixby asked.

“What are _you_ wearing?” Morse countered.

 

Bixby smiled, looking rather pleased with himself. “It’s my costume. For the party, tomorrow night.”

“Ah,” Morse said. “I didn’t realize it was a fancy dress ball. It was my understanding that you were holding some sort of an  _art_ _exhibition_.”

He lay a pointed stress on the last two words, as if to let Bixby know that he understood his daft plan all too well.

“I am, old man,” Bixby said. “That’s why I’ve chosen this costume, in honor of the occasion.”

 

Morse scowled, confused. What in the hell was the man playing at? He _did_ know that the first party, the one held by Gambart, the one he was apparently emulating, had ended up in disaster.

Didn’t he?

 

“Here. Let me show you. Come with me to my study. There are a few things I want you to have a look at there, as well,” he said.  

Bixby turned, then, and led him through the great hall—a room as high as a cathedral, lined with tall colonnades, and bright with chandeliers as large as clouds made out of diamonds and slivers of mirrors soaring overhead—and then down a long, wide corridor.

It was surreal; it was as if Bixby had been expecting him, as if he didn’t find it at all strange that he should appear in such a state on his doorstep.

 

“That suit is all wrong for you, by the way, you do know that, don’t you?” Bixby called, as he went on ahead, smooth as glass even wearing a ridiculous suit of armor. “A word of advice: I wouldn’t go back to that tailor if I were you.”

“It’s not mine, the suit,” Morse said, annoyed.

 

The man could be insufferable, really. Surely, Bixby understood his suit was the least of his troubles?

 

“Oh. Well,” Bixby said, making a surprised but primly amused face. “Far be it from me to ask any awkward questions.”

“It’s not anything like that!” Morse snapped. “These were the only clothes I had! I just escaped from a madman! Do you know how discombobulating it is, to wake up in an _asylum_ , and find out the criminal psychopath is in charge? How did he get in there? To whom did he show his credentials? I barely managed to get away from the place!”

 

Bixby stopped then, and turned, his dark eyes finally serious, gazing at him a little sadly, even.  

 

“I know, old man,” he said. “It’s been all over the radio. Your grand escape. I figured it must be something like that.”

 

“Oh, god,” Morse moaned, putting a hand to his forehead.

 

It was worse than being in that newspaper. Now he wasn’t only “The Singing Policeman,” but rather “The Mad Escapee.”  Even if he managed to clear his name, to solve the case, how would he ever live any of this down?

 

“What’s all this? Why despair?” Bixby asked. “You got yourself out. I daresay I couldn’t have done it any better myself. I, for one, had every faith in you. I knew you’d be along. I’ve been waiting all afternoon, in fact.”

 

Morse stilled at that. It did seem as if the man at the door knew who he was—as if he had been expecting him. But how could that be? How could Bixby presume to know all about him? He had had quite enough of that for one day, of people second-guessing his every move.

 

“What made you think that?” Morse asked.

Bixby stopped and turned around again, surprised no doubt, by the sharpness in his tone.

“Because you want to solve the case, of course,” he said.  

Then, he continued on, walking to the end of the hall and opening the door to his study, beckoning him through.

Morse mulled his words over for a moment, and then, finding that he couldn’t disagree, he shrugged and followed.

 

“Now. Look here, old man,” he said. He headed straight over to a large easel beside the desk, one covered with a white silk cloth. Then, he pulled the cloth off of the canvas with a flourish.  

 

“Et voila,” he said.

 

Morse stared at the thing in disbelief.

 

It was a painting of Tristram and Isolde by John William Waterhouse, in which Tristram, dressed in a light suit of armor, reached out to take a cup offered by his beloved. The dark-haired man depicted in the painting, Morse could see at once, _did_ look remarkably like Bixby.

 

 

“You’re joking,” Morse said.  

 

“What?” Bixby asked, smiling his white flash of a smile. “It’s good, isn’t it?”

Morse put a hand to his forehead and shook it lightly in disbelief. “No. No, it’s not.”

“Whyever not? It’s certainly one way to bag the man.”

 

It certainly might have been, once, but all things notwithstanding, Morse could see a hundred things that might go wrong. For one. . .

 

“What about the girl? Isolde? What makes you so certain that that man will try to seize you? How do you know he won’t go for a guest who looks like her?”

“Oh, that’s simple,” Bixby said. “My date for the evening. My former partner. Agent Hollings. She’s a brunette actually, Sylive, but she’s gotten a red wig for the party. Together, we ought to be irresistible. We’re bound to draw the man out of the woodwork.”

“She thinks this is a good idea?” Morse said.

“Absolutely. She helped me to get a hold of this painting. It’s a bit late for the Pre-Raphaelite era, if that’s his cup of tea, but it was as good as we could do on so short a notice.”

 

Morse could scarcely believe there was another special agent who thought this was in any way a good plan.

Incredible.

There were two of them out there, then.  

 

“You aren’t worried? Either of you? Of making yourself the target of someone like that?” Morse asked.

“Of course not. You forget. Sylvie and I have been trained for this sort of thing. We’re accustomed to working with people willing to kill for a fee, with cold and single-minded precision. A man like this? All tangled up in his own twisted ego? He’s bound to trip up. No, old man. I’m not worried in the slightest over a madman like this.”

“Well,” Morse said. “Maybe you should be.”

Bixby made a disparaging noise. “You managed to outwit the man, and you’ve been a police constable, for what, all of two months?”  

 

“I don’t feel like I’ve outwitted him, exactly,” Morse said, cautiously, “I just feel that I’ve been . . .”

 

“What?”

 

Morse heaved a sigh. “Running for it,” he said.

 

Bixby smiled, a smile meant to be encouraging, and Morse took heart.

 

“Why are you doing this, anyway? I thought you said this wasn’t your case.” Morse asked.

Bixby straightened then, looking grim. “He’s been obscuring things. He’s not a part of my case, no, you’re right there, but he certainly is complicating it. I need him out of the way.”

“You know,” Morse said, cautiously, “He might not come for the painting. He’s not …. I’m not sure if he’s ... interested in paintings, anymore.”

“Of course, he is. That’s been his pattern all along, as it turns out,” Bixby said. 

 

Morse wasn’t sure what to say. He rather thought it had been, too. But now, it seemed, that was no longer the case.

But how could he possibly explain?

He’s not interested in paintings because … now he’s interested in ….  _me?_

It sounded wrong, all wrong. Morse felt almost contaminated by the very idea. It was just too repugnant to consider it, let alone to say the words aloud.

 

But that man … Gull… he knew all about this party. He had mentioned it, hadn’t he?

 

_“How? How will they stop me? With that ridiculous trap of a party that that idiot Bixby is planning? However did the police put him up to it? This wasn’t your asinine idea, I’m sure.”_

 

 

That man didn’t know Morse as well as he thought that he did, but he must know how determined he was to stop him. He would know that Morse might come here, where an effort to apprehend him was being made. 

Morse had told him as much, after all. 

 

_“Yes. It was, actually,” Morse said. “It was all of my idea. I talked with Bixby the day after we found Frida Yelland. Asked him if he would agree to help.”_

_Cronyn looked thunderstruck for a moment, then delighted.  “You’re joking.”_

_“No. I thought you wouldn’t be able to resist the theatrics of it all. The chance to show us all that you could pull off another theft, right under our noses. To show us all up.”_

 

And it was true, too, what Morse had told him, that man. He did seem to like the spotlight, to be a bit of a showman. He had been toying with them all along, brazen in his every move, coming down the to the station to plant a false story, planting false flowers to create a false lead, faking his own death and planting a....

 

Morse swallowed. 

 

… a false corpse.

 

This party, Gull might well feel, _would_ make for the perfect setting for the next move in his game.

 

But if that man _were_ to come here to this party, it would be he, Morse, who would be his target, not Bixby, nor this Sylvie, despite their ludicrous costumes.  

But with two agents here, not to mention all of the police put on detail . . .

 

“Is it all right if I stay here for a while? If I stay here for the party?” Morse asked.

 

From the bright look on Bixby’s face, it was clear that he misunderstood; he seemed to believe that Morse had come around to his way of thinking, to think that he had the right idea.

 

“Of course, old man. I thought you would see the wisdom in it. It’s just like Cronyn said. The man is a megalomaniac. He won’t be able to _resist_ turning out for such a spectacle." 

 

Morse felt suddenly as if he had been thrown off balance; but, of course, Bix would not know the details.

 

"Are you all right?" Bixby asked.  

 

Morse took a deep breath. “Yes. It’s just .... that psychiatrist. Cronyn. He _is_ the megalomaniac.”

 _“What?”_ Bixby asked.

“He’s the one who . . . . who took me from the Thursdays’. He’s the one who was there, at Bellevue.”

Bixby looked aghast. “How is this?” he asked. 

“It’s a long story,” Morse explained. “When I went back to the station, he wanted to talk to me, Cronyn. To try to … to help me remember where it was I was held and .... and I figured it all out, I knew it was him. When we were alone, he dropped all pretense. It’s all just been an elaborate ruse, his posing as an expert. He used his credence there at the station to plant a false story amongst the officers about a man named Keith Miller, but it was all a joke, a blind. It’s an anagram. For _‘I’m the killer._ ’”

“Really,” Bix said, a faint line forming between his brow.

“Yes. His real name is Mason Gull. He killed his mother years ago.”

“He actually came into the station to _talk_ to you? He actually had the nerve to flaunt himself in front of all of those officers?” Bixby asked.  

"Yes,” Morse said.

Bixby nodded thoughtfully for a moment, as if cottoning on at last that the man might be more devious than the erratic madman he obviously took him for.

 

Then he shrugged, as if it was all one to him. “So much the better to get this wrapped up, then. But,” and here, he looked perplexed, “If you know it was him…. why have you been on the run, old man? Why haven’t you told the police? How did you end up in Bellevue?”

“I _did_ tell them," Morse said. "I tried. They didn’t believe me. He’s done all sorts of things to cover his tracks, to make me look...” Morse let the sentence drop—he couldn’t bear to remember that awful day at the nick when that man had gaslighted him so.

 

“How is that?” Bixby asked sharply. “What sort of ‘ _things?’_ ”

“Frida, for one. I argued for so long that the cases must be connected. But that man couldn’t have killed Frida. He had been at the station all of that day, he was with us when her body was found."

 

“The Pre-Raphaelite killer didn’t kill Frida," Bixby said.  "As I said. She didn’t fit his pattern. It was no accident that there was never any painting stolen representing her.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because,” Bixby said, simply. “Frida is my case.”

 

He gestured, then, for Morse to sit down in a deep, brown leather chair before his desk, and then he circled round to the other side of it and poured them out two glasses of Scotch from a cut-glass decanter he kept there. 

Morse took his glass and waited. He could sense, that now, at last, they were coming nearer to it, that at last they might begin untangling the thread.

Bixby sank down into his chair and opened a drawer, pulling out two books— an old paperback and a small black notebook.

 

A black notebook. Just like the one Jakes had said was missing from the scene of the apparent suicide.

 

“You took that,” Morse said, at once. “From the scene of Pettifer’s suicide.”

“ _I_ found it,” Bixby said.

“Strange is in trouble over that.”  

“Ah. Well. Matters of national security trump police business. Besides, I gave them the chance to see the thing.”

“Why not tell them? Why not simply tell them you were taking it?” Morse asked.

Bixby spread his hands wide, as if it were all too obvious.

“Because I’m an _'art historian,'”_ he said.

 

Morse shook his head in disbelief and sipped his Scotch. A man of a thousand faces. Of course.

 

“Now,” he said, tossing the paperback onto the desk. “I’m surprised you missed this, old man. I found this in Frida Yelland's room. A beauty queen with a copy of the Communist Manifesto? What do you make of that, eh?”  

“Why shouldn’t she have it?” Morse asked. “It’s just a paperback edition. It didn’t cost much.”

 

Bixby frowned. “I’m not talking about the _price,_ Morse. It’s the _content,_ I'm interested in. Look at what she’s underlined.”

 

Morse took the book and flipped through it, musing over a few of the passages underlined, the last one, doubly so. 

 

_"Then the world will be for the common people, and the sounds of happiness will reach the deepest springs. Ah! Come! People of every land, how can you not be roused?”_

 

“You think she’s your agent,” Morse said.

“I do. And not only that, from the passages, she’s underlined, I think that she was an idealist. The most dangerous thing you can be, these days, old man.”

“So,” Morse said, considering. “You’re thinking, what, exactly? That she fell in with some people who weren’t as idealistic as she was? Who were perhaps selling state secrets purely for profit? Who perhaps wanted her out of the way when she found out?”

“That’s exactly what I think," Bixby said. "And I also don’t believe that Pettifer was a suicide. He knew something about it all, too.”

 

Bixby took both books, then, and opened them to pages on which their owners had written notes—Pettifer’s in a hurried, uneven scrawl, laid out all over the page almost so that the words formed a triangle, and Frida Yelland’s in a careful, slanted script, circling around the corner of the text in the margins.

 

“Two victims. Two books. Both containing notes that seem to coincide with one another, but also seem to contradict one another. What do you make of that, constable?” Bixby said. 

 

Morse snorted. “Pettifer’s handwriting is atrocious. I can do better with my subdominant hand.”

 

Bixby gave him an exasperated look. “His handwriting is neither here nor there, old man. I’m a bit more interested in what it _says._ Now, look at this. _141066\. Doomsday. Friday._ What do you make of that, eh? It just so happens that the fourteenth of October next, is, indeed, a Friday. Are they planning something perhaps? Some sort of attack?”

 

Before Morse could answer, Bixby turned to Frida’s notes in her paperback book. “Now. This one,” he said. “ _98018 Domesday Tuesday 10._ It’s strange that one says _Tuesday_ and the other _Friday._ Odd, too, that Frida would misspell _Doomsday,_ when she seemed to be such a literary sort.”

“Maybe she didn’t,” Morse said. “Maybe it was Pettifer who misspelled it.”

"How's that?" Bixby asked. 

Morse took Frida’s book and rotated it. “It might not be   _98018_ , but rather _81086._ August 1086, the month and year in which the Domesday book was completed, the record of the great survey taken by William the Conqueror. And, as long as we’re going back to the eleventh century—and taking into account the abhorrent sloppiness of Pettifer’s notes—it's possible that _141066_ , doesn’t stand for the fourteenth of October, 1966, but rather for the fourteenth of October 1066. The date of the Battle of Hastings.”  

 

“ _The Battle of Hastings_?” Bixby asked, incredulously. 

 

“And here, look at this.  _Friday_. Pettifer's handwriting _does_ make a difference. Notice how they're unevenly spaced, the letters?" Morse said. "It might not be _Friday,_ but rather  _Frida Y.”_

 

“What about _Tuesday 10?_ ” Bixby asked.

“Tuesday at 10 o’clock,” Morse said.  

“Well. Thank God for that. Not very helpful, old man.”

 

Morse turned it over in his mind, trying to make sense of it all. It was obvious that they were missing some key piece of information.

But one thing was clear. 

 

"So I was right then, what I told them," Morse mused. "Gull was with us when I mentioned the flowers. He went back and planted them later, to muddy the waters, to ... well ... to gaslight me, I suppose." 

"Yes," Bixby said, quietly.  "As I said. He's been obscuring things. Far past time to get him out of the way."

"But say that you do," Morse said. "Do you have any idea, then? Any idea as to who killed Frida, if it wasn’t Gull?"

 

Bixby downed his Scotch in one go and stood up. 

 

“You look dead on your feet, old man. Why don’t we get you upstairs? You can get yourself cleaned up, borrow some of my things in the meantime. I just don't see how you can think properly in a suit like that. We'll discuss this further over dinner." 

 

He began to head off, then, leaving Morse to stand where he was, feeling very much as if he had traveled down a bit of a one way street—feeling as if he had offered Bixby what he thought of the cases without having received much in return. It was as if Bixby was purposefully keeping something from him. 

 

“Well, come on, old, man," Bixby said. Then he smiled. "I’m sure you know your way around, after all.”

 

Morse grimaced at what could only be a veiled reference to the night he had once spent there, upstairs, passed out on a bathroom floor.

 

It was strange to think of it: It seemed as if he had come a million miles since then. And it also felt as if he had gotten nowhere. 

 

*****

Morse stretched out, leaning back luxuriously in the long tub, sinking deeper into the warm water.

He had gone straight from that house to hospital, and then had been home for only an hour or so before Jakes had picked him up, and then he was off to Bellevue.

He should feel awful. But he didn’t. Perhaps because Bixby was right. He hadn’t managed it with the finesse that Bixby might have done. But he _had_ gotten away.

And it did feel good to get the antiseptic smell of Bellevue off of his skin, the last bits of blue paint out of his hair.

 

The paint.

 

Morse sank further down at the thought of it, so that he resting his head against the edge of the porcelain tub, looking up at the ceiling. Then he sighed, heavily.  

He would have to tell him, Bix. He would have to tell him about the things he had written on the walls, about all of those skeletal sevens he had left there, at the Gull family's old inn.

Morse groaned aloud and sank further into the water then, all the way down, until he was totally submerged, as if the water might provide him with a temporary escape from the larger world. As long as he remained there, holding his breath, he would be able to put it off, that awful moment in which he would have to dredge all of that up again, that part of his past that he so wished could remain forever buried.

He lay there, under the water for some time, and then bobbed up, alerted by the sound of an exaggerated voice ringing from downstairs.

 

Then he exhaled sharply.

There was no cause for fear.

It was only Bixby.

 

By god, the man was loud.

 

Then Morse bolted upright in the tub. It was no accident that Bixby’s voice should be carrying so.

It was a warning.

They were here.

Looking for him.

 

"I'm sure I haven't seen him, Inspector," Bixby blared, with all of the theatrics of a second-rate player. "Why on earth would the man be here?" 

 

Morse felt it—he needed just one more piece, just one or two more pieces of information, and then he would have it all figured out. He couldn’t go with them now.

He leaped up, sopping from the tub, and grabbed a towel from off the rack, drying off, and throwing on the extra clothes that Bixby had given him. The shirt stuck unpleasantly to his still-damp skin as he worked the buttons with his injured hands, but that was no matter—he had no time to waste. As soon as he was decently dressed, he left the bathroom in a puddle of water and then took off running down the hall.

 

They couldn’t find him, not yet.

If it were Thursday who was to drag him back to Bellevue, he wasn’t sure if he could bear it.

 

He passed bedroom after bedroom and then chose one at random, running inside and throwing himself under a large sleigh bed, willing his wildly thumping heart to still, his breathing to quiet.

It was a gamble. There were so many rooms in the place, with any luck, they might just pass him by.

But, if he _was_ found here, hiding under a bed, he certainly would look as if he wasn’t playing with a full deck, he certainly would be falling straight into the trap laid out by Gull. 

 

Oh, god.

 

Morse almost felt that it would be preferable if it _were_ that man, Gull, who had come here, hunting him down—rather than for Jakes to find him half-dressed and hiding underneath a bed.

 

And then he heard them, the sound of footsteps in the hall. 

Morse held his breath and listened. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a link to Bixby's latest painting! Click [here](https://www.wikiart.org/en/john-william-waterhouse/tristram-and-isolde-1916)
> 
> And thank you again to Drusilla for showing me how to make the link! :D


	17. Chapter 17

Now _this_ was a house.

Sure, Lord Marston’s place was nice, in a tweedy and understated and genteel sort of way, but if Fancy ever managed to get his hands on bags and bags of money, he’d shoot the works and get a place just like this. Gilt embellishments framing the walls, glowing like warm gold under the blaze of crystal chandeliers, a ballroom with a round stage, set with colored lights like those of a posh London nightclub, and a dining room that could seat two hundred people, easy.

Upstairs, Fancy passed bedroom after bedroom, all done up, top of the line, as if awaiting a horde of party guests. He stopped and stepped inside one of them, one with a sleigh bed as broad as the police Jag, heaped with piles of satin pillows. The tall windows were strewn with swaths of silken curtains so rich and fine that he could almost hear the rustle of them, sighing with an assonance of _s_ sounds, as if the room was whispering his name.

_“Fancy!”_

_“Fancy!”_

It was almost as if the room knew he belonged there, as if it knew that this was the life he was meant for, that this was the life for him.  

 

_“Psssss. Fancy!”_

 

He nodded in approval at the opulence of the room and was just turning to go and have a peek in one of the others, when the room called out to him again.

 

_“GEORGE!”_

 

Fancy spun around, his heart leaping into his throat and sticking there. He was so surprised that, for a moment, his eyes couldn’t make sense of what it was he that was seeing. It was as if a damp and bedraggled cat had popped out from under the bed, one with two angry and eerily human blue eyes.

 

Then he caught his breath. 

 

“Morse?” Fancy asked.

 

Christ.

It was only Morse.

Or Morse’s face, anyway.

 

 _“SHHHHHHH!”_ Morse hissed. And then he disappeared again, under the edge of the bedspread.

 

Fancy knelt down and lifted the satin spread, fringed with tassels, and looked under it. Morse was there, lying flat on his stomach, his face turned sideways, his eyes glaring incongruously bright and sharp, for someone who was hiding beneath a bed.

 

Fancy laughed. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m hiding. What do you think?”

“From whom? It’s only us.”

“I want to know what’s going on,” Morse snapped.

 

Fancy looked over his shoulder, preparing to call for the others.

 _“Don’t!_ ” Morse hissed, with an authoritative tone that gave Fancy pause.

Fancy turned back to him, then, ducking his head. “It’s all right, Morse,” he explained. “Miss Frazil brought that newspaper. Thursday told Mr. Bright all about it. The old man believed you even before that, really. He went up to Peterborough and ….”

 

He stopped mid-sentence. Somehow, he thought that if Morse knew all the grisly details, he would be less, and not more likely, to come in.

 

“ . . . and blew holes all through Cronyn’s alibi,” he said. “So you see, he was on to Cronyn even before he got the paper you sent, really. He knows you were telling the truth.”

 

Morse’s eyes darted back and forth for a moment, as if he was considering this.

 

“I can’t," he said. "I can’t go with you, yet. There’s still some things I have to work out.”

“But I think Thursday is . . .” And again, Fancy paused.

“What?”

“I dunno. Sort of worried about you, I guess.”

 

An odd flicker passed across Morse’s face. Then, he shook his head. 

“Thursday is not in charge,” he said, heavily. “You know he isn’t. There’s someone else who’s running this show.”

 

“Well. Yeah,” Fancy conceded.  “Shirl reckons it’s Deare.”

 

Morse’s blue eyes grew even larger, then, within their purple mask of bruises. “Why?” he asked, at once.  “Why would she say that?”

 

Fancy sighed. This was bound to be awkward as hell.  

“Well. Deare came by the nick, and …. well . . .” he began... 

“Well, _what?"_  

“He told me what a commendable job I’d been doing, despite being assigned….”  Fancy let the sentence fall away, then, and shrugged.

“A partner who is unstable,” Morse finished.  

“He told me you don’t have the best interests of my career at heart,” Fancy said, because this, somehow, seemed less harsh a thing to repeat. 

 

Morse made a scathing noise. “ _Career,”_ he said.  “And I’m sure Deare does, isn’t that right? I’m sure he’ll be happy to give you a leg up, if you agree to confirm I’m absolutely nutters at the inquiry he’s bound to be planning.”  

“He said he might be able to invite me to a meeting of a _‘certain secret brotherhood,’_ Fancy said.  “If you catch my meaning.”

“All premised on you being a good boy and turning me in.”

“Yeah,” Fancy said. “It was a fairly double-edged conversation, to be honest.  He sent Shirl off to do the filing, but she was there in the room. She overheard the whole thing. She thought it all sounded pretty suspect, too.”

 

Fancy frowned for a moment, and added, “But I dunno. That Val Todd is just as oily as Deare is, if you ask me.”

 

“Val Todd?” Morse asked. “What? Have you had any more dealings with him, then?”

“Yeah,” Fancy said. “When we went up to London, to have a shufti around Pettifer’s office, I found a cheque there, written out by Muriel Todd to Pettifer, for thirty guineas. The bulk of Pettifer’s work seemed to be divorce, tracking unfaithful spouses and . . .”

 

“And you think Pettifer was tracking Todd,” Morse concluded.

 

“Mmmmm,” Fancy replied. “I mean, that’s what Mrs. Todd confirmed herself.”

Morse raised his eyebrows. “You _talked_ to her? You went _back there_?” he asked.

“When Shirl and I were going ‘round the paint supply stores, we happened by Chipperfield Studios, yeah. And we went in. Asked Mrs. Todd about it. She said that she’d felt uneasy about her husband spending so much time working on the pageant, working with all the girls. That he’d been ‘a little distant.’ As if he had someone else on the side. So I thought…. maybe Frida?”  

 

Morse looked thoughtful for a moment.

 

“No. I don’t think Frida was having an affair with him. But she might have met with him, and with Deare, for another reason. And if Pettifer followed Todd, thinking he’d get photographs of him meeting in a tryst, he might have seen….”

“Seen what… ?”

“Seen them kill her,” Morse said simply.

 

Fancy blinked. He certainly seemed to have arrived there quickly enough.

 

“You spoke to Todd about this, too?” Morse asked. “About the cheque?”

“Yes. He denied all. Gave a story about how he owed everything to his wife. How he used to be only a lowly entertainments officer at that abandoned old holiday camp, Hastings Grove. How she was the one who made him, how he’d be a fool to throw his marriage away.”

 

“Hastings Grove?” Morse asked, sharply.

“Mmmm,” Fancy said. “You know. That old ghost town of a place, out in Binsey?”

 

“Did you ask him where he was on the twenty-eighth of September?” Morse asked.

“He said he was in meetings all afternoon, with the judges of the pageant.”

“Did he say where he was in the morning?”

 

Fancy paused.

“No,” he said, at last.  

 

“What about the day Pettifer was killed?”

“He said he was at a car show. North Oxford. Plenty of witnesses.”

Morse twisted his mouth for a moment, as if mulling that over. “Men like that,” he said. “That might not mean much. They might have some heavy to act for them.”

 

Morse paused for a moment, scowling; it was funny, really, seeing him look so serious, with his hair damp and curling, his lanky form pressed sideways under a bed.

 

“It makes sense,” he said at last. “It all fits. He’s like Raskolnikov, Deare. He can’t leave it alone.”

“He scolded _what_ off?” Fancy asked.

 

“Deare,” Morse said. “He was so tetchy that day we were out at the studios. He was discussing something. With Todd. He thinks we might have overheard something.”

Fancy shrugged. “I didn’t hear what they were talking about.”

“No,” Morse agreed. “Nor did I. But they weren’t expecting us. They didn’t notice when we came in. So now, they’re not quite sure, as to what we heard, and what we didn’t. Irony is, if Deare hadn’t acted as he had, we might never have thought anything of it. But he’s worried. He’s not quite sure. And so he’s testing and testing and testing the waters, and by doing so….”

“He sorta seems suspicious as hell, doesn’t he?” Fancy asked.

“Mmmmm,” Morse said. “And Pettifer is just like us, then. He was following Todd. And they think he either saw something, or heard something. And so they had him killed. And made it to look like a suicide.”

 

“Jesus,” Fancy said.

 

“The thing is, it’s a bit more complicated to get kill two police officers and have it go unnoticed. Easier to discredit me and buy you off into their filthy little cabal.”

Fancy whistled, softly. “What a bastard.”  

 

“What about Doomsday?” Morse asked.

 _“Doomsday?"_ Fancy asked. "What about it?”

“Did anyone say anything about Doomsday, or the Domesday Book or 1086?”

“No,” Fancy said. “I’ve haven’t heard anything about anything like that. Why?”

“It’s nothing,” Morse said.

 

For a moment, a thoughtful silence lapsed between them.

 

“Look. Morse,” Fancy said, at last. “This is way over our heads. You should trust the old man.”

“No,” Morse said. “No. I can’t. They might just go for him next. And… And I just _can’t._ I can’t risk being locked up again.”

 

Well. Fancy couldn’t quite blame Morse there. The man had just escaped from the lair of a serial killer only to get carted off by a mad Victorian shrink.

Who happened to be one in the same person.

 

It was bound to put anyone off, really.  

 

But Fancy thought that he knew what Morse was planning all too well.

 

“You’re thinking he’s coming to this party then? You’re thinking Gull will turn up?” Fancy asked.

“It will be fine,” Morse said, all but confirming it. “There will be a huge police presence there, I’m sure.”

“Shirl and I will be here. Undercover,” Fancy said. “I think even Mr. Bright is coming out for this.”

“There you go then. I have every confidence in you,” Morse said.

“But what about Todd and Deare?” Fancy asked. "What do we do about them?"

 

“We can’t tell Thursday. If Deare thinks Thursday is in any way on to him, he’ll go for him next. I need to go higher,” Morse said.  

Fancy snorted. “How are you going to do that?” he asked. “Who do you know who is _higher_ than Deare?”

“Just…. I just need twenty-four hours. Just twenty-four hours. And then, if I can’t work it out, I’ll come in. But I have a plan. You are just going to have to trust me,” Morse said.

 

Fancy hesitated. Morse _did_ seem to know what he was on about.

"All right,” he said.

 

Just then, approaching footsteps sounded in the hall.  

 

 _“Shhhhhh!”_ Morse hissed, waving his hand downward, gesturing for Fancy to drop the bedspread back into place.

Fancy let it fall and straightened, just as Inspector Thursday came to stand in the threshold of the doorway.

 

“Fancy?” Thursday asked. “Were you saying something?”  

Fancy blinked for a moment, and then he hummed, looking appreciatively around the room.

“Mmmmm,” he said. “I was just wondering aloud, that’s all.”

“About what?” Thursday asked.  

 

He looked to the Inspector, then, and tilted his head.

“If I ever make Chief Superintendent,” he asked, “do you think I might be able to swing a place like this?”

 

Thursday regarded him for a moment, his grim face a complete blank, and then he shook his head in despair, as if Fancy were a complete and hopeless idiot.

And then he walked on.

 

Fancy stood for a moment, waiting for the Inspector’s footsteps to fade. Then, he wheeled round, lifted the satin bedspread, and ducked his head under the bed, where Morse was listening, his eyes wide.

“You owe me one!” Fancy said. “Now the Inspector thinks….”

 _“Sssshhhhhh!”_ Morse hissed.

“All, right,” Fancy said. “Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow, I suppose.”

 

And then he lowered the bedspread concealing Morse and left the room, padding back down the hall toward the stairs.

************

Morse lay his head down on the carpet and tried to still his breathing, remaining as silent as possible, despite the odd little choke that had seemed to settle somewhere at the back of his throat.

It was such a relief, a relief beyond words, knowing that Thursday believed in him.

It had been Thursday who had come to see him in hospital on the day after he had been taken away from that house, after the shooting last summer. It was Thursday who had made Morse to feel— for the first time in as long as he could remember—that he was safe at last, that things might be all right.

 

If the man who had led Morse to hope that he might have a second chance at life, after all, had been the same man to drag him back into another sort of captivity, he wasn’t quite sure if he could bear it.

 

But that would not be. Thursday believed in him, still, just as he did then, back when Morse did not even believe in himself.

And where Thursday led, Jakes and Strange were sure to follow. And Fancy and Trewlove, too, had been on his side all along, it seemed, making their own inquires.

It sounded as if even Mr. Bright had come round to the truth.

 

Trouble was, there were so many dragons to slay. There was Gull, of course, violent and unpredictable. But there were also wilier ones, ones working in the background, hiding in caves, unseen.

 

But then, Morse had an ally in Bixby, as well. Between the lot of them, working together, it was impossible that they shouldn’t all see this through.

 

Morse took a shuddering breath. Despite the itching stiffness in his side from where he had been knifed at Christ Church, the stinging pain in hand and the dull ache that blossomed across his face, he felt his adrenaline pumping, a new surge of hope and a new purpose flooding through him.

He was just wondering if it might be safe to come out, when he heard a booming voice—Thursday’s voice—ringing through the grand house from downstairs.

 

“Good night, Morse!”

 

And then there was an annoyed slam of a door.

 

Morse smiled wryly.

 _“You’re not fooling me for one minute,_ ” Thursday's tone seemed to say. _“But if you’re that determined to get on with things, then so be it, then.”_

 

“See you tomorrow, sir,” Morse murmured softly, under his breath.

 

**********

 

Morse emerged from under the bed and walked downstairs, wandering through the empty rooms, looking for signs of Bixby.

He found him, finally, in a large dining room, his suit or armor gone, dressed instead in his shirtsleeves, sitting at the end of a table and talking to a woman with long dark hair who was standing beside him, her arms folded, as if she had just come in.

She looked up as he approached.

“Oh,” she said. “You must be Morse.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Sylvie Hollings,” she said, by way of an introduction. “So. When’s your birthday?”

“My _what?”_ Morse asked.

“Your birthday. When were you born?”

 

Morse scowled. What was this? Some sort of request for name, rank and serial number?

 

“The twenty-fourth of September,” he said. “1938.”

 

Her face lit up at that, for some reason, and she looked delighted, as if he had been the bearer of stellar news. “Ah,” she said. Then she turned to Bixby. “He’s a Libra. That’s a Trine with Gemini. Someone to understand you at last.”

Bixby frowned at her, as if to discourage whatever train of thought it was she was following, but she had already pivoted back to Morse.

 

“Bix is a Gemini,” she said.

“Oh,” Morse said.  

 

Bixby shook his head, then, a twist of an exasperated smile on his face, but that served only to send Sylvie into peals of laughter.

Morse hadn’t the slightest idea as to what they were on about, but they certainly weren't inspiring confidence. Whatever it was, he had no time for it.

 

“It was Deare,” Morse said. “Deare and his crony, Val Todd.”

 

Their smiles faded.

Sylvie shot Bixby a startled look, but Bixby’s face was suddenly grim.

 

“Why do you say that, old man?”  Bixby asked.

“Why do you not look surprised?” Morse countered.

 

Bixby paused, considering him.

 

“After that ARMADA business last summer, Special Branch decided to appoint a special liaison amongst the police,” he said. “To keep an ear to the ground in Oxford. You know. University town. Hotbed of eager little revolutionaries, keen to bring about a brave new world, not understanding that one dictator is very much the same as another.”

Morse understood at once.

“Deare,” Morse said. “It’s Deare, isn’t it, the liaison? Deare has been being briefed by Special Branch? He’s been to their offices? He’s had access to information that might be of interest to the Soviets?”

“Yes,” Bixby said. “I thought it suspicions—I mean, we get a new man on board, and then suddenly it seems that there’s been a security breach? I’ve talked to my director about it. But….”

“But what?” Morse prompted.

“It didn’t go over very well, I’m afraid” Bixby said. “It’s been an unpopular theory, that a veteran police officer would be aiding the Reds. He doesn’t fit the profile. If they can’t trust a crusty old copper, whom can they trust?”

“His allegiance isn’t to the police, or to Britain,” Morse said. “It’s to the Masons. It’s to his career. It’s to himself.”

 

Bixby raised his eyebrows, the question clear on his face.  

 

“Fancy and I went to Chipperfield Studios, weeks ago now, to ask about Frida Yelland. And Deare was there, talking to Val Todd, manager of the place. Todd told us that Deare was there because he’s to be a judge in a beauty pageant they have coming up. But if that was all there was to it, why was Deare so put out about us coming out there?”

 

“Why?” Sylvie asked. “What did he say?”

 

“Told us we were out of bounds. To stick to our jobs and not to stick our noses in. And then, suddenly, there was a flood of rumors that Fancy and I weren’t out there on an inquiry at all, but rather that we were crashing the place, loafing about and drinking by the pool. I think he supposes that we overheard something, while we were out there, and has been keen to figure out how to ‘handle us’ ever since. And now this business with Gull has played right into his hands. He’s got all of County and half of City out looking for me. I’m well on my way to being completely discredited, even booted off the force. I just talked to Fancy a few minutes ago...”

 

“ _Did_ you?” Sylvie asked, looking amused—no doubt by the idea that Fancy had conferred with him but hadn’t turned him in.

 

“Yes,” Morse said. “He told me that Deare came to see him, just this morning. That he told him how difficult it must have been for him, starting off on the job with a partner like me. All but told him that if he went along with him in his little smear campaign against me, he might be able to invite him to a meeting of a _‘certain secret brotherhood,’_ one that might help him along in his career.”

“The Masons?” Bix asked.

 

“What do you know about the Masons?” Morse asked.  

Bixby shrugged. “Not a lot, really. It’s not my cup of tea, that sort of thing, obviously. But I _do_ know they’re loyal to one another. Loyal to a fault, some might say.”

 

“But what does Deare have to do with Todd, really?  And where does Frida Yelland come into the picture?” Sylive asked.

 

“I am willing to bet that Val Todd is also in that 'secret brotherhood.' That he and Deare are old friends,” Morse said.  

“Mmmmmm,” Sylive said.

“Fancy found a check, at Pettifer’s office, written out by Muriel Todd. So he and WPC Trewlove paid _another_ visit out to Chipperfield Studios. Muriel Todd told them that she had paid Pettifer to track her husband, because he had seemed preoccupied, because she thought he might be having an affair. But it wasn’t a _girl_ he’d been meeting up with. He had been meeting with _Deare.”_

“So, Deare and Todd are working for the Soviets, then, you think? They are our leaks?” Bixby asked.

 

Morse shrugged. “When Fancy asked Todd about the cheque, he said he would never have an affair, he’d never forsake his marriage, not because he loved his wife, but because she had made his _career_. So. There’s another one motivated by what he can get.”

“And it would be a good place to launder the money, Chipperfield Studios,” Morse mused. “Tickets bought in cash, fluctuating, erratic income depending on the success of their shows. As good a place as any for Deare to launder any payoffs he might receive from the Soviets in exchange for whatever information he’s picked up during his little briefings with Special Branch.”

 

“And Frida was there, at the studios,” Bixby said, “It’s just possible that she might have overheard something, just as they thought you and Fancy had.”

 

Morse huffed a snort of contempt. “The way they behave, they might have even spoken quite freely in front of her, thinking she was just some girl, thinking that she wouldn’t even cotton on as to what it was they were talking about.”

 

“But she did. She did overhear, and she did understand. And so she wanted to help them,” Bixby said.

 

“But they weren’t dedicated to bringing about a utopia of the proletariat. For them, it was all about the money. They weren’t loyal to the Party. Only to themselves,” Sylvie said. “They didn’t want to create a new cell. They only wanted to keep their little racket going.”

 

“They couldn’t risk Frida going about, trying in earnest to help them, when they didn’t want her help,” Bixby said.

“And so they killed her,” Morse concluded. “They told her to meet them at Hastings Grove, the old holiday park, to talk about their plans, and then they killed her. And then they found out Pettifer had been trailing Todd, that he was a witness, and so they had him killed, too.”

 

“Hastings Grove?” Bixby asked.

 

Morse nodded. “Val Todd told Fancy that he used to be entertainments officer at Hastings Grove. That’s where Pettifer found them. It was shorthand, in Pettifer’s notebook. _141066_. 14/10/1066. Hastings. With Frida Y.”

 

“Then what about this Doomsday business?” Bixby asked. 

“I don’t . . . . I don’t know,” Morse said, slowly. “Does it matter, when everything else fits?”

 

Bixby shrugged. “I would love to know, before we decide what we do next. Is it a plan? Have they managed to give over something critical?  Is it a code word? If it is, it’s an ominous one, isn’t it? I’m not sure if we should act before we know the whole of it… If there _is_ something deeper there, and we stumble, make a wrong move …..”

 

Bixby didn’t need to complete the sentence.

_"I have become death the shatterer of worlds."_

 

Or, on the other hand, if the one date _did_ stand in for Hastings, perhaps the word was meant to be _Domesday_ , as Frida had written, rather than _Doomsday,_ as Pettifer had? Perhaps it was only some sort of obscure and veiled reference to the Domesday book?

And if so, what did it mean?

Should they wait, and not put the men on their guard, until they had the chance to find out the whole of it?

 

Suddenly, Bixby was looking irritated with himself.

“I should have invited them to the party. Todd and Deare. Then I might have had the chance to talk to them, to see what I could dig out of them. There’s a chance they might come anyway, I suppose. But when people receive an invitation, it seems they can’t resist.” He flashed his Bixby smile. “You know, old man. Just to brag that they’ve received an invitation.”  

 

Morse huffed a laugh. And then, the answer came to him.

 

“You can invite them to their own party,” Morse said.

 

“How’s that?” Bixby asked.

 

“You can send them each a note, signed with the initial of the other. _‘Urgent that we meet. Same time, same place._ ’ If they both show up to Hastings Grove, then you know.”

 

Bixby chuckled indulgently. “Well, old man. It’s a …. well. It’s a little simple, isn’t it?”

“Simpler than planning another party like this?” Morse asked. “Yes.”

“Same place, all right. But how will I know what is the same time?" Bix asked. " _Is_ it ten? And if so, is it ten in the morning or ten at night?”  

 

“In the morning,” Morse said, at once.

Bixby and Sylive looked surprised.

“She was found in the early afternoon," Morse explained. "Dr. DeBryn said she had been dead only a few hours.”

 

Sylvie turned, then, to Bix.  “You know,” she said, “it’s not the worst idea.” 

 

“Hmmmm. Well. Yes. But it’s not the _best_ idea. Not bad for your first try, though, old man,” Bixby said.

 

Sylive rolled her eyes. “Not _everything_ has to have all your bells and whistles attached in order to work, you know. You could, every once in a while, keep it simple.”

 

Bixby grimaced at that; he didn’t seem to like feeling as if he was being outnumbered.

“Well. Let’s have dinner. We can talk about this later, hmmmmm?” Bix said.

 

Morse scowled and took his chair. Simple of not, he was sure it would work. The men were already on tenterhooks, it was clear. Or, at least Deare was.

 

But Bixby, no doubt, was already planning some elaborate scheme of his own, involving purloined silver, a letter from the prime minister, a white rabbit, two passenger pigeons, and a broken music box.

***********

Morse stretched out across the large four poster bed and stared at the ceiling. It had been a long time since he had stayed in such a grand room—not since those summers they had all spent out at Tony’s aunt’s half-abandoned old country estate, back in their Oxford days.  

 

Tony.

 

Morse couldn’t help but wonder what Tony was thinking now, how annoyed he must be at having been visited once more by the police.

But then, perhaps Tony might be at the party tomorrow. Perhaps Morse might have the chance to talk with him. Perhaps he could fix everything, all in one night. Perhaps everything might go back to being as it was before.

Morse rolled over, searching for a cooler spot on the pillow. It was certainly a far cry from where he had woken up that morning, a far cry from Bellevue: silk pajamas and feather down pillows, high ceilings and space.

 

Still, he felt an odd sort of twist in his chest, one he hadn’t really felt the like of since … since that first night he had spent at his father’s house, after his mother . . .

 

And then he realized. He was homesick.

 

It was a grand room, but Morse found himself wishing, strangely enough, that it was smaller, that his bed was narrower, that the turntable of his record player was slowly revolving by his side, that Sam was down the hall banging on the bathroom door to brush his teeth while Joan, sequestered inside, was giving herself a facial. That Mrs. Thursday was downstairs, sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea and her book, that Thursday was in the chair next to her, reading his paper.

He wished that his walls were covered in green and flowing vines and spiraling birds and….

 

Morse sat up abruptly.

He had almost forgotten.

The walls.

The walls at that house.

 

He buried his face in his hands for a moment and, then, he took a deep breath.

 

Oh, hell.

He would have to tell him. He would have to tell Bixby what he had done.

 

He got up, then, and walked quietly out of the room, heading off down the hall.

The room at the very end of the corridor, he assumed, must be the master suite, must be Bixby’s. And sure enough, when he looked in through the half-open door, Bixby was there, looking out the tall windows, out into the night, his hands clasped behind him.

 

“Bixby?”

 

Bixby turned around smoothly, as if pivoting on the spot.

 

“Morse? Everything all right, old man?”

 

“Yes,” Morse said. “But there’s something I think I should tell you. That man. Gull. He wanted me to paint his portrait.”

Bixby’s dark eyes softened in the lamplight, turning solemn. “Yes. I figured as much.”

“And I did,” Morse said.

 

For a moment, Bixby said nothing.

 

“But … ,” he began, at last. “I thought …. It sounded as if you hadn’t seen him, when he had you locked up. You said you only figured out his identity when you were speaking to him, down at the station.”

“Yes,” Morse said, and he felt the beginnings of a telltale stinging at the corners of his eyes. He hated even to think of it, that he should be told once more what he was and what he wasn’t, and that is should happen again as it had happened before and . . .

“I didn’t ever see his face,” Morse said. “But he did leave a … definite impression. And so… I painted something. More based on a feeling, really. It was … rather …. abstract.”

 

Morse could see it, the moment that the wash of understanding spread across Bixby’s face.

“What did you do?” he asked.  
 

“It all. ..  I dunno . . . ” Morse said, his voice breaking, despite himself. “It all just came pouring out. I didn’t _intend_ to put it into the painting. It was just … it was just _there._ ”  

 

It was awful, standing there, feeling that he had failed again, feeling that he had once more managed to disappoint.  Bix’s frustration was palpable. But Morse understood it was not personal. There must be people, colleagues of Bixby’s, who thought that he should be contained far more than he had been. Most likely he had been left alone on the premise that he would fade into obscurity, into the quiet life of a working-class copper.

But if he was erupting with formulas at every crisis…..

 

“It’s no matter,” Bixby said.  I’ll get someone over there. I’ll get someone to take care of it.”

 

Then Bixby smiled, a smile Morse knew he meant to be encouraging, and he found himself taking heart. Perhaps someone could just…. paint over it …or ...

Or burn the awful place to the ground…?

 

Perhaps they could all forget he had done such a thing. Perhaps they could simply allow it to recede in the rearview mirror. Until he was so far away that no skeletal sevens could pursue him.

 

Morse stood for a moment, lost in thought, until he realized that Bixby was watching him. 

 

“Anyway,” Bixby said, bracingly.  “I’m glad you came by, old man. We have to talk about the party.”

“What about it?” Morse asked.  

“What are you going to wear? You have to have a costume, or else you’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”

“A _costume?_ ” Morse said.

“Of course. You'll need to blend in, won’t you? There will be all sorts of people you know there on detail. You want to seem as just another guest.”

 

Bixby went over to a wardrobe that covered half the wall and opened it.  

 

“I have a few things that might work,” he said. “Here, what do you think of this?” he asked, pulling out a thick white toga.  “A nod to your days as a Greats scholar, yes?”

Morse recoiled from the thing. He had no wish at all to relive those memories, quite honestly.

 

“Hmmmm,” Bixby said. “Maybe you’re right. There’s no pretext to disguise your face with a costume like this.” He tossed it, then onto a chair.

 

“I’d rather just wear an evening suit, to be honest. I’d rather not .. ." Morse began.

“Now, how about this,” Bixby said, blithely ignoring him and rummaging about, again, in the wardrobe. “Your face looks already like it’s painted blue as it is; this way, we can paint it completely, and _et voila_!”

 

And then he pulled out a blue and green kilt and a fly plaid.

 

“No,” Morse said.

 

But again, Bixby ignored his protests. Instead, he reached out and mussed up his hair, until Morse could feel the waves falling about in all the wrong directions, so that it must look a spectacular mess.

 

“There,” he said. “That’s it.” He held the costume up to him, eyeing him critically. “With that blue face, and your hair half wild, you look rather intimidating old man.”

 

Morse groaned at the very idea. 

“Well, you have to wear _something,_ ” Bixby said. "And it's certainly better than that suit you showed up here in. _That's_ what you ought to have been embarrassed to be seen in, if you had the slightest sense of ...." 

“Fine,” Morse said, cutting him off and snatching the hanger away from him. "I'll wear it, then." 

“Don’t look so put out. You’ll look good in the thing,” Bixby said. “You should be proud. Not everyone could pull that off, you know.”

 

Morse shook his head.

Well.

If he could 'pull off' nicking a serial killer and uncovering a conspiracy between the assistant chief constable and a wealty businessman, he supposed wearing a kilt to a party ought to be the least of his worries.

 

He had just never imagined that he'd make his first arrest wearing such a thing.

 

He wondered if Jakes might be there tomorrow, on detail.

He wondered if he would get through this ordeal with _any_ shred of his dignity left intact.

Or if he would even get through it at all. 

It would be terrible enough ending up on Dr. DeBryn's slab in that cold and awful mortuary. But it would be even more terrible, ending up there dressed in Bixby's ridiculous costume. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this chapter wasn't too heavy on the exposition.... It turned out there was still a lot to set up before the party! :0)


	18. Chapter 18

 

Sometimes, Jakes found himself wishing that the man would just come out and say it.

 

_“Remember me, little Pete?”_

 

It would be a relief just to have out with it, for each to admit to the other that they remembered, that they each knew damn well who the other truly was.

But instead, Deare always seems to snake his way around it, dropping opaque references, compliments even, that were double-edged.

 

“He’s a good, sergeant, Jakes. He’ll see you through,” Deare said.

 

A good sergeant, he said. But what he meant was tractable. Does what he’s told.

 

But Inspector Thursday only nodded his agreement, taking the words at face value. The old man was so bloody decent, really, despite his hard edges. He would never know, would even never suspect, all of the cold meanings that ran like fissures beneath the warm words.

 

“He’ll see to it that the madman is brought in,” Deare said.

And suddenly, the dismay on Thursday’s face was visible; it wasn’t at all like the guv’nor, whose grim features were usually so set, so determined, to betray such shock at the man’s words.

Jakes, however, was not surprised. That’s just how Deare was, how he worked, twisting and always twisting … and it was just like a twist, a knife right to the gut.

 

And no.

No.

Jakes couldn’t remain silent.

 

“I’m sorry, sir,” Jakes said. “I thought the madman we were seeking was Gull. It he’s who’s killed four people, at the least, and kidnapped a child and one of ours. Isn’t it?”

ACC Deare turned and regarded him coldly.

“Yes,” he said. “But Morse is a standing police officer. Gull’s a monster, certainly. Of course, we’re still pursuing him. But even more dangerous are the monsters that carry with them a position of authority. Morse will be our priority until he’s apprehended.”

And then he turned on his heel and left. 

 

Leaving Jakes to feel as if he’d been punched, to feel even more sickened than he would have had he said nothing.

Because, of course, Jakes knew that all too well, what those with absolute power over another might do.

And Deare knew that he knew. First hand.

 

“More dangerous are the monsters that carry with them the position of authority,” Deare had said.

And Jakes had no retort, because only two words were there, ringing through his head.

 

_You bastard. You bastard._

 

When Jakes joined had joined the force, he was prepared for just this. He understood that he might run into the man. But what other profession could he choose? Those men were there at every turn, weren’t they? An alderman, a doctor. There was no escaping one of them or the other.

He could, of course, leave town. Start somewhere fresh. It was an idea that Jakes had often entertained, in those hours between sleeping and waking.

But Jakes was an Oxford boy, through and through. He’d be damned if he’d let them take one more choice from him, damned if he’d let them drive him from his city.

Oh, yes, he would leave, one day.

When he was good and ready.

On his terms.

 

Jakes glanced up at Thursday, who was watching Deare’s retreating form, his expression once more dark and unreadable.

He wanted to tell the old man: you’re not wrong. He wanted to tell him: assistant chief constable or not, he’s just what you think he is.

But instead, he only shook his head and turned to Strange and Fancy, who were standing behind a desk in the corner. Strange looked troubled, but Fancy seemed barely able to contain his triumphant glee. He looked like a kid who knew all about a surprise party and was dying to tell everyone all about it, but was trying hard to remember his promise to keep the secret.

 

Jakes snorted, softly.

Morse may have thus far eluded ACC Deare, but Jakes was quite certain that PC Fancy knew exactly where his partner was.

And while Jakes wasn’t quite as certain, he felt he could hazard a good guess.

 

Jakes wasn’t sure what Morse knew, but he was sure that Morse knew enough not to trust Deare, that he knew not to trust to a force that was under his command.

That Morse was just as fed up with their game as he was.

Who would have ever thought they would have something in common after all?

It wasn’t Shakespeare, despite the hopeful look Morse had cast him that day in the car.

It was that they both knew the truth of it, of the rot at the core of Division, spreading like a soft bruise through the Oxford County police, and doing its best to creep through City as well, right up to the very door of the Cowley CID.

 

****

 

“Watch out. That was my eye,” Morse said.

“I’m not anywhere near it,” Sylvie protested. “Here. Look up.”

 

She took a step back from where Morse sat, on the edge of the bed in Bixby’s master suite, and rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling.

 

“Like this,” she said. “That way, you won’t see my fingers.”

Morse complied and looked up, staring at the designs of the ornate plaster casting above him.

“That’s it,” she said, and then she bent forward once more and continued dabbing his face with blue paint.

She seemed quite pleased with her work, but Morse felt like an idiot. He never enjoyed it, dressing up. It was difficult enough just being himself. He felt self-conscious in anything other than his own clothes. And sometimes even in those.

No. This was not how he envisioned his first big case. Not in the slightest.

 

“So,” Bixby said, standing before an oval mirror, taking in his reflection as he adjusted the light metal gauntlet on his wrist. “Any last minute questions?”

Morse raised his hand.

“Ah,” Bixby said, pivoting on the spot. “Yes. Morse?”

“Those people downstairs,” Morse said. “Setting up all of that lighting. That’s not gas, is it? You have heard how Ernest Gambart’s party ended, back in 1866, haven’t you?”

“Of course,” Bixby said. “There's nothing to worry about. The lights are electric. I simply ordered ones that could be set up to give a similar effect, to light the painting, that’s all. A stage company from up in London is putting it together. They do all sorts of period pieces, evidently.”

“Thank god for that,” Morse said.

 

Bixby began to turn to look in the mirror once more, but then, Morse raised his hand again, tilting his head obediently as Sylvie continued to dab his face with paint.

“Yes? Morse?”

“That band, tuning up downstairs. They’re going to be playing at the party, then, I take it?”

“Hmmm," Bixby said. "They’re all the rage, the Wildwood. Do you know how much I had to pay to get them to do a private party?” 

Morse grimaced. It was all worse than he imagined. This party was bound to be, in every conceivable way, a journey through every possible ring of Dante’s Inferno.

 

Bixby looked at him, appraisingly. “Poor Morse. This isn’t your idea of a stake-out at all, is it? You should be in your uniform, sitting behind the wheel of the Jag, parked in some seedy alleyway at two in the morning. You should spot the killer lurking outside a window and give chase— throw him to the ground and cuff him behind the rubbish bins. Am I right?”

Morse shrugged.

As opposed to searching for the man while wearing a kilt at a posh party while those godawful clashing electric guitars dueled on into the night?

The answer was yes, honestly.   

 

“No matter," Bixby said. "You’ll soon learn that this sort of work is eighty percent improvisation." 

 _“Eighty-percent?”_ Morse cried.

But Bixby ignored him. “And cheer up. I’ve a string quartet coming on later, to bring us all back to the nineteenth century when we do the painting bit. You’ll feel much more at home then.”

Morse snorted and shook his head. He highly doubted that they would make it that far into the party.

 

“Stay still,” Sylvie said.

 

Morse raised his hand once more.

“Yes, old man?” Bixby said. 

“If we are all in costume, won’t that make it rather more difficult to spot Gull? Might not he arrive wearing a costume, too? Perhaps we won’t even know him,” Morse said.

 

Bixby and Sylive laughed.

 

"Of course, we’ll know him,” Bixby said.

 

“How?” Morse asked. “From the aura of evil that he emits?”

 

Bixby might have a pocket full of magic tricks, but he didn’t have magical powers.

 

“Of course not,” Bixby said. “He won’t be wearing a costume. He welcomes the attention. He’s simply going to come right on in here, just as he is.”

 

“There,” Sylvie said, straightening. “I’m done. Go and have a look at yourself.”

 

Morse rose from off the bed and approached the mirror, cautiously.

 

“Hang on,” Bixby said.

He reached out and rumpled his hair, running his fingers upward to make the waves stand on end, while Morse tried in vain to swing his head away from the onslaught.

“You need the full effect, old man,” Bixby said, laughing. Finally, he pulled his hand away. “There. Now there’s that devil-may-care look that you’re aiming for.”

 

Morse stepped before the mirror, and it was true—he really almost might not recognize himself. The blue and green tartan fly plaid pinned to his shoulder with the heavy gold brooch, the width of the matching kilt and the thick blue socks, _did_ give him a slightly more substantial presence than he might have thought, and his eyes looked atypically bright and large in their setting of vivid blue war paint.

“See,” Bixby said. “It’s just like I told you.  You look good in the thing. And besides, old man. Take heart. You’re still one of the boys in blue.”

Morse scowled.

 

****

Fancy had never seen the like of it. It certainly was a far cry from the sort of parties he and his flatmates threw, which essentially involved no planning whatsoever—other than simply telling everyone they knew to come to theirs and to bring a bottle.

It certainly was a spectacle, one almost overwhelming to the senses. The tall and tapering ionic white columns, the classic ivory walls embellished with gilt filigree, the soaring cathedral-like ceilings—all of it was lit up, infused in a rose and aqua and soft emerald green glow, as guests meandered through the grand rooms, dressed in costumes of every era.

Many of the guests, endeavoring to match the mood of the painting that was to be displayed, were dressed vaguely in the manner of the nineteenth century, the way you might think a romantic poet would garb himself—frilly cuffs and white ruffles at their collars. Some of the young girls were hedging it a bit—wearing dresses with nineteenth-century sleeves and bodices, but with mid-twentieth century hemlines, showing off their knee-high boots. There were hoop skirts and crowns and tiaras and long robes and revealing togas—it was a bit of a wild jumble, actually. A small army of liveried waiters made their way through the happy disorder, carrying silver trays topped with amber flutes of champagne and cocktail glasses filled with drinks as bright and as colorful as the glimmering party lights.

 

Fancy and Trewlove meandered through the throngs of party-goers laughing and calling out to one another in the Great Hall and then passed through a curtain of glittering beads, to emerge into a wide ballroom.

There was a full band on stage, filling the place with a plaintive wail of guitar and a steady drum beat, playing a cover of a song by the Wildwood…

…. and no….

Goddamned if it wasn’t _actually_ the Wildwood.

 

Fancy snorted. “Not bad, this.”

 

Colored lights, in the same hues as those that lit the walls—rose and emerald and aqua—swept over the dance floor, rolling over the faces of the guests, making them to look as if they were moving more erratically than they actually were. And everywhere, bubbles of translucent balloons festooned the bannisters and balconies, catching the light and deflecting it, turning the place into a pulsating and billowing dreamworld of a wonderland.

 

They stopped at the edge of the dance floor. In the roving lights, Shirl’s white dress took on the colors of a rainbow.

Their costumes weren’t half bad, actually.

Trewlove had the idea for them to go as a couple from the 1920s, so all that meant for him, thank God, was a vintage white suit. It was pretty sharp, really.

Shirl was wearing a short white dress, strings of long beads and a silver coronet of ivy leaves in her hair, which she wore down, so that it curled around her shoulders.

Fancy had never seen her with her hair down before, and looking at it now, in the aura of the lights, he felt as if the room had gone strangely airless.

 

In working with Shirl over this past few weeks, the beauty who had stood before the record shop in the blue cap had transformed somehow before his eyes, taking on a whole new dimension; she’d become a colleague, a confidant, even a friend. And now, standing here at the party, she had morphed again into the woman he had first spotted from halfway down the street, the one he had to figure out how he could talk to, anyway he could. Even if it was to say the first dumb line that popped into his head. 

_“So. What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?”_

 

That morning seemed a lifetime ago, now. 

 

Trewlove, he realized then, was looking at him, bemusedly.

“What?" she asked. "There _is_ a woman, under the uniform, after all. You do know that?” 

 

Fancy grinned.

 

And then willed his brain to think of something to say.

 

But nothing came.

What should he say? What should he do?

How was he supposed to behave, on a date that wasn’t a date?

 

Suddenly, he looked up, feeling as if a pair of critical eyes were on him.

It could be any of his superiors, really. They were all in an awful mood, all of them. Thursday had been glowering all of the morning at anyone who he felt had even _breathed_ the wrong way. Even by-the-book Jakes was sour enough about the whole mess to get stroppy with Deare.

But Mr. Bright had been even more set off. He seemed to take it personally, that the man whom he had invited down to the nick for “expert advice,” had been, in fact, playing them all for fools, sowing discord and mistrust and false leads amongst them.

County might make Morse their first priority. But Mr. Bright had made it clear that for the Cowley firm, the target was Gull and only Gull.

 

Finally, Fancy found the source of his discomfort, the pair of censorious eyes. It was Strange, standing tall, his arms folded, watching him from across the room.

Strange met Fancy’s gaze and raised his eyebrows, meaningfully.

He was right; he probably did look like a ponce, just standing there, open-mouthed, like an idiot.

 

“Should we dance?” Trewlove said, as if she noticed Strange's look, too. “Try to mingle some with the crowds?”

She smiled up at him. “Look less obvious, perhaps?”

 

And suddenly, Fancy’s mouth was dry.

“Sure,” he managed.

 

As they stepped out onto the floor, the band started up with a new song. It was one Fancy had never heard before, with an altogether different sound—a slow, psychedelic slide of a ballad, with a melancholy peal of guitar that chimed like starlight.

His hands hovered at Shirl's waist before he dared to rest them there, but once he did, he felt something in his chest swell. He felt he would like to do something grand, to leap in front of a bullet for her, or in front of a leaping tiger. He’d give anything for her, for the girl so precious, so warm beneath his encircling hands.

 

Thank God, for once in his life, though, he was savvy enough not to blurt out such a thing.

 

“I can take care of myself,” she’d say coolly.

 

And she could.

 

But that didn’t stop Fancy from feeling the way that he did.

 

He chanced a glance at her face, half-afraid she might be able to read his thoughts, but her expression was all business; she was watching the fringes of the dance floor, her brown eyes scanning the crowds. She was on duty, even as she swayed in his arms.  

His senses, on the other hand, felt far less acute …. His mind was lost in a haze of colored lights and of the gentle scent of Shirl’s perfume and of the softness of her hair as it just barely brushed his face.

Well.

Perhaps she might keep watch for the both of them.

 

“Do you think Morse is here somewhere?" she asked. "I’d like to know just what it is he’s planning. Probably something ill-advised, if you ask me.”   

“Hmmmm,” Fancy agreed, not registering her words in the slightest. 

 

***

Tony stood by the stairs with a glass of Scotch in hand, looking out over the party. He wasn’t surprised in the slightest to see how crowded it was.

For days now, it had been all anyone could talk about.

Even those who would not ordinarily have come out to the party, just to say they were there, just to be a part of one of Bixby’s legendary productions, had been drawn to the stone house on the lake by the sheer audacity of the thing—of holding a gala centered around the exhibition of their host’s latest acquisition, a painting that just so happened to fall into the same roundabout period and genre as the ones that had been stolen over the past several weeks by the Pre-Raphaelite killer.

The guests, in costumes gauzy and bright and whimsical, seemed to flitter about the place like moths to the flame, wanting their share of the flash and glimmer of the night, wanting—perversely enough—to be a part of the show, should a larger drama unfold, should the killer put in an appearance, breaking like a tempest into the doldrums of their play.

 

If _that_ were to happen, it would be all anyone could talk about.

Pity to miss it.

It would be dreadfully dull, hearing all the gossip of the night, should anything occur, and not having a tale of one’s own to share.

 

Tony snorted and took a drink of his Scotch, feeling very much like an outsider looking in. It was as if all of them—his relations and friends and lifelong acquaintances—had all been reduced to characters in a performance, extras bustling about the stage, waiting for the villain to emerge and deliver a soliloquy while twisting his moustache. It was as if his set had become so jaded, so desperate for some fresh amusement, that they had quite forgotten where to draw the line.

 

Odd, really, to think that just a few months ago, he might have been counted amongst them.

But now, Tony didn’t find any of it the least bit entertaining.

He still hadn’t quite gotten over the shock of it, of those long weeks in which Pagan—having just reappeared into his life from out of the fog of the past—had faded into a ghost once more, had disappeared, stolen away by the very killer who the crowds now seemed to wait for as if he were a highly-sought after guest.

No.

Bixby’s party was not at all a mere show, a mere diversion. Not for Tony.

 

The weeks of uncertainty that followed Pagan’s abduction had been hell—both a reminder of how Tony had failed him once before, and a painful, twisting and sinking realization that he was, even now, failing him yet again.

It was beyond imagining, the horror of it: for five years, Tony had gone about the business of his life—reading the papers, going to parties, driving around Lake Silence in his tony automobile, playing cricket, all the while assuming that Pagan had joined the army, that he had left them all behind in high dungeon, that he was stationed somewhere up north or perhaps in West Germany. When in fact, he had spent year after endless year, locked away in a small room, slowly drifting away from the world, slowly giving up hope, not ten miles away from where Tony stood in his drawing room, idly pouring himself a drink.

Being expected to do that a second time—to simply sit at home and do nothing, just trust to the police to find him, was just too much. Each moment he sat and waited felt like a fresh betrayal.

But what could he do? According to Inspector Thursday—whom he had visited in the hopes of at least offering some sort of ransom— nothing.

 

And now, Pagan had vanished for a third time, right within arm’s reach, it seemed, right from some point between the main road and his own house.

Tony hadn’t known what in the hell say to Inspector Thursday when he had come out to Marston Hall. The fact that the Inspector seemed so certain that Pagan was there, so sure that Tony was hiding him somewhere about that place, was like a new wrench, a new pain, a new tightening in his heart.

Because Pagan _wasn’t_ there. He  _hadn’t_ come.

 

And …. why hadn’t he?

 

Didn’t he know by now that he could come to him, if he was in trouble? Didn’t he know that he meant the world . . .

 

Tony frowned and finished off his drink. He hoped that the killer _did_ show up here. What with the heavy police presence—Inspector Thursday and his men at the front door, officers standing on post throughout the house—with any luck he would be caught, and the whole nightmare would be over.

Because if Tony didn’t know where Pagan was, and neither did Inspector Thursday, then….

 

Then, where on earth was he?

 

“Tony?” came a voice from behind him.

Tony wheeled around to see a man standing on the stairs, just behind him, leaning over the bannister. He was in full tartan regalia, his reddish hair standing on end, and his face painted blue—but the shape of that face—one Tony had not long ago held framed in his hands as he sat beside Pagan in the rain—and the large blue eyes looking out from the paint, Tony would know anywhere.

 

“Pagan,” Tony breathed.  “What the hell are you doing here? Do you know that half of Oxford is looking for you?”

 

Of course, Pagan was here. Why hadn’t Tony seen it earlier? Even Thursday, who had known him only a few months, had seen it.

“Tell him he doesn’t have to prove himself,” Thursday had told him as he searched the downstairs drawing room, as if Tony were capable of popping upstairs and delivering such a message.

“Tell him just having him back in one piece is enough to be going on with.”

 

Was it possible that the Inspector had it right, then? That despite all that had happened, Pagan had some mad idea that he could catch the killer, that he could solve the case on his own?

And if so, to what end? Did he feel he needed to prove himself to Thursday, to that sardonic sergeant, as the Inspector had said? 

Or did Pagan feel he could overturn his past, somehow, by striking against Gull in a way in which he never had against Clive Durrell?

Or was this all simply the natural outpouring of his own stubborn nature? Pagan always did seem to run to extremes—the man hadn’t so much a tuning dial as an off-off switch. It was all or nothing with him, he either did things full-throttle or not at all.

Or could it be all of the above? Could it be the perfect storm of all of those reasons, brewing together, leading Pagan to get carried away on the winds of his own reckless plans?

 

Tony frowned, considering him, as Pagan stood hovering on the stairs, watching his expression carefully, as if he was awaiting a verdict, his eyes like two blue vortexes, expanding as if to draw him into their depths.

 

“Are you very angry, then?” Pagan asked.

 _“Angry?_ ” Tony asked, incredulously. “Why would I be? For your making my house the talk of Lake Silence, you mean? We’ve had the police ‘round our place more often than Maplewick Hall.”

 

The luster of the blue eyes seemed to fade, the glimmer of hope there to fall into retreat.

 

Tony had forgotten how literally Pagan could take things, at times. How sarcasm—at which he himself exceeded—seemed sometimes to elude him.

 

“I’m joking, Pagan.”

“Oh,” Pagan said uncertainly, as if he didn’t quite believe him.

 

And perhaps Pagan was _right t_ o doubt. Because, when he got down to it, perhaps he _was_ angry. Angry at being kept in the dark, angry with all that had happened, and, yes, perhaps …. 

…. angry with Pagan.

Angry, yes, but a thousand other things besides—angry, and relieved to see Pagan standing there, evidently unharmed, and confused as to how he had come to be there, in full costume, no less, in the first place … and desolate, too, because Pagan had obviously been in trouble, and yet …

… and yet he had not come to him.

 

Pagan’s hands were resting on the bannister, the right one bandaged up haphazardly, as if he had done it himself. He had been on the run, it seemed, almost as soon as he had escaped from his abductor; doubtless he needed help, doubtless he needed to have his hand seen to properly, at the very least.

Tony narrowed his eyes, looking over Pagan’s face. Beneath the blue paint was a darker, purplish tinge and . . .

 

“What happened to your face?” Tony asked. “It looks like someone’s beat you all about.”

“Oh,” Pagan said. “That would be when I escaped.” He looked down, then, and twisted his mouth, as though embarrassed. “From . . . Well. From Bellevue,” he added softly.

 

Tony sighed. Well. There was only one thing for it.

 

“Come on,” he said. “I just saw Inspector Thursday, patrolling outside.”

 

He reached up to take hold of Pagan’s wrist, but Pagan snatched it away.  

 

“No,” he said, scowling.  

“Pagan,” Tony said. “That’s enough of this now. It’s time to turn this over to those who know what they’re doing.”

 

His face changed then, and he rose to his full height, lifting his head with a stubborn jerk of his chin.

 

“I know what I’m doing,” he said.  

 

“I don’t think that you do. You of all people shouldn’t be here. Don’t you know that madman is bound to …” 

Tony shook his head, tossed the sentence away. “Now,” he said. “Let’s go. He’s a good man, Inspector Thursday. You should trust him.”

 

“I _do_ ,” Pagan said. “I _do_ trust him.”

“Then why all of this subterfuge?” Tony cried. “Let’s go. Tell him whatever idea it is that you are hatching and let’s get you out of here.  Doesn’t he outrank you? Isn’t he supposed to be in charge?”

 

Pagan shook his head sadly, looking dejected. Then, he leaned down, so that his face was inches from Tony’s ear.

“You don’t understand, Tony,” he said, quietly. “He’s not in charge, Thursday. There’s….. There’s corruption. At Division. Someone almost at the very top. Thursday has a family to support. I don’t want to jeopardize his career over this. I can handle it.”

“You don’t think Thursday has the right to know? To make that decision for himself? He doesn’t strike me as the sort of person that would appreciate being kept in the dark for the sake of his own security,” Tony replied.

 

Pagan twisted his mouth, again, as if mulling this over.

 

“But…. but I don’t want to get him into trouble.”

“With whom?”

“I can’t say.”

“Well. That’s nonsense,” Tony said.  

 

 

And suddenly, Tony recalled a winter morning, standing in a kitchen in Lincolnshire, waiting to collect Pagan for the Hilary term.

 

“Well, I’m off, Pagan said, as his father sat at the small table, reading a newspaper folded open to a list of racing results and eating a piece of toast.

“Hmmmm,” Mr. Morse said.

 

And that was it.

 

Tony had been surprised. He had always supposed that middle-class parents were somewhat more effusive with their offspring.

Tony’s own parents were rather stiff, as was typical of their set, but even they took the time to bid him a good term when he was preparing to leave their house for _months_.

“Let me know if you need any new shirts, dear,” his mother would say.

“Perhaps I’ll get up for one of the cricket matches,” his father would add. “Do let me know the schedule, once you’ve got it, old boy.”

 

But Pagan’s father had barely bothered to lift his eyes from the paper as he led Tony out the door.

 

 

“He’s not your father, you know,” Tony said, his mind full of the memory. “Thursday.”

Pagan blinked. “My _father?_ ” he said, as if he thought Tony rather tasteless even to broach the subject.

“Yes,” Tony said.

“Why would you bring him up for? What’s he got to do with anything?”

“Because I don’t think you understand how it works, the police force.”

Pagan snorted. “Of course, I do. I’m the one that went through training, last I looked.”

 “You call him the guv’nor, or whatever it is, don’t you?” Tony said. “Doesn’t that mean you’re supposed to defer to his judgment? He might know a little bit more about things like this than you might realize. The man doesn’t strike me as a blushing innocent.”

“No. I’m doing this,” Pagan said.

“Doing _what?"_ Tony cried. "You don’t think you’re working undercover, or some such thing, do you? You know you can’t be on this case.”  

“Of course, I’m on the case. I’m a police officer.”

 

Tony could barely believe it. It was true, then. He actually thought…

 

“Pagan. See reason. You were abducted by the man. You are a _part_ of the case. A victim of it. Surely a kidnapping victim doesn’t arrest his own kidnapper. Doesn’t that bar you somehow? Conflict of interest and all that?”

 _“Conflict of interest?_ ” he asked incredulously. “I rather think it _validates_ my interest. He’s after me, after all. Besides. I don’t understand why you’re lecturing me so. You’re just trying to confuse me.”

“ _Are_ you confused?” Tony asked. “Good. I’m glad of it. Maybe I’m managing to break through to you, then.”

“I’m sorry I ever stopped here,” Pagan said. “All I wanted to say was… “

 “Say _what?_ Give me some parting words in case whatever it is you’re planning doesn’t quite go off?”

“I just wanted to say I was sorry. I just didn’t want you to be angry.”

“Well, you know what? Maybe I am. I don’t think you’re sorry at all. If you really gave a damn about what I think, you’d march your arse out there right now and talk to Thursday.”

 

Pagan widened his eyes alarmingly, looking a hair’s-breath from absolute implosion.  

 

“I _can’t_ ,” he hissed. “I _can’t_. I told you. He’s not in charge.”

 

And they were right back to where they started. Tony opened his mouth to protest, but Pagan cut across him.

 

“I don’t … I don’t want him to have to choose between me and his career,” he said. “Because he has to see to his family’s support first, can’t you see that? And if they force him to comply, if he’s the one who drags me back there, I … I’ll never … I’ll …  I _can’t_ Tony. I just can’t. You ask too much.”

“Maybe you ask too much, expecting me to sit here and watch yourself plotting some suicide mission, tearing around here… It’s …”

“Strange,” said Pagan.

Tony huffed a rueful laugh. “ _Strange?_ ” he said. “It’s not only strange. It’s untenable.”

“No,” Pagan said, looking out over the party, from his place up on the stairs, his face oddly blank. “Strange. He’s the one who mentioned it. Domesday.”

 _“What?”_ Tony cried. "Doomsday? What's this?"

“I have to go,” he said.

 

 And then, suddenly, he tore off from his place at the banister, flying down the rest of the stairs in a torrent of tartan.

 

“Pagan!” Tony shouted.

 

But Pagan kept running. Once he reached the bottom of the flight of steps, he disappeared again, off into the crowds.  

 

***

Constable Strange was standing near a doorway, watching over the revolving crowds, when, suddenly, he felt a decisive tap on his shoulder.

He spun around.

It was Morse, standing there beside him, his face painted blue, wearing a kilt and a fly plaid pinned with a gold brooch to his shoulder. On first glance, he looked a bit wild, what with his hair standing all about his face, glowing in the lowlights like a reddish gold halo, but his expression was grim and solemn.

“Blimey, matey,” Strange said. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”  

 

“Sorry,” Morse said. He cast a dark look, then, toward the direction of the ballroom, as if he might reduce the source of the noise stemming from it to ashes if he could.

“I suppose that dreadful music is so loud, one can’t even hear someone stepping right behind them,” he said.

 

“It _is_ loud,” Strange agreed. “Everyone’s ears will be ringing tonight, I’ll wager.”

Strange tilted his head, then, looking down, considering him.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” he asked. “County’s got their knickers in a right twist, looking for you. ACC Deare came down to the nick, just this morning, to make his complaints to the old man.”

“Oh, did he?” Morse snapped, looking haughty as hell.

 

Then Morse leaned forward, so that they were a mere few inches apart.  

 

“Listen. Strange,” he said. “I have to ask you a question. You said, when we were at the Thursdays’, that you had been invited to a meeting of a secret society.”

Strange frowned. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s right.”

“You said Deare was the grand master, there, of what . . . the Domesday Lodge? Is that right?”

“Yeah. 98018. The Domesday Lodge. That’s the one.”

 

Morse stepped back and blinked. _“98018?”_ he asked.

“Yeah,” Strange said.

 

“And what do you know about a man called Val Todd? Is he a member, there, too?”

 

Strange hesitated. He wasn’t supposed to say, strictly speaking. But surely, his loyalty to the force should trump all of that.

And the way Deare had behaved, down at the nick… well….

It was enough to leave Strange all too tempted to tell them just to stuff it, really.

 

“Yeah,” Strange said. “They’re best mates, I might say. They go way back. Why?”

 

Morse’s big eyes went even larger at his words, bright blue in his blue face.

 

“Thank you,” Morse said. And then he spun around to leave.

 

“Wait. Morse,” Strange called. “Does Thursday know you are here?”

“I think so,” Morse said, enigmatically.

 

And then he was gone.

Strange shrugged. He was surprised that Morse would stop to chat at all, really.

 

Prickly buggar.

 

Strange sighed and started off, heading toward the main doors. He had the feeling the old man might be interested in this.

****

Morse wheeled his way through the crowds, crowds that were packed so tightly in some places that he could barely move, only shift his weight from foot to foot, churning and percolating with frustration.

 

He had to find Bixby. He had to tell him that the last piece of the puzzle had fit with a decisive click.

 

98018\. Domesday. Deare and Todd.

 

“Pagan?  Bruce called. “What are you doing here?”

“Nothing,” Morse said, finally finding a parting in the sea of guests, speeding up and heading into the next room. Bruce was the last person he had time for right now.

 

Once he got beyond the Great Hall, the crowds thinned, and he turned and went along a long corridor. Then, he was marching through a labyrinth of rooms, the kilt flying about his legs as he went, his head turning from side to side, searching for Bixby.

 

Where was that idiot?

 

He passed a library, and a parlor, and here, it was quieter, here fewer guests mingled, so that he could overhear snatches of conversation as he passed. A man and woman kissed in a darkened corner, and Morse walked on, until he came to a room that looked familiar, a room infused with red light, a room where a marble Roman bust stood on top of a pedestal, wearing a top hat.

 

Oh, yes. He remembered this place.

 

And sure enough, there it was, still on display—that fake Pieter Claesz, all lit up, like the Holy Grail. Two men were standing before it, looking at the painting in open admiration.

 

One of them gave a low whistle.

“That must be worth a pretty penny, wouldn’t you say?” 

 

Well. That was just too much. As much as Morse had pressing matters to attend to, he simply couldn’t let their misconception go uncorrected.  

 

He strode up behind them.

“It’s a fake, you know,” he announced.  “A copy. A good one, but. The real one hangs in the Rijksmuseum.”  

 

The two men turned around.

 

And Morse felt his heart leap up into his throat.

 

It was them. The two officers from County, who had stopped him on the night he had escaped from Gull, who had stopped him while he was on his way to the Cowley CID, somewhere, evidently, out on Botley Road.

 

“Is that . . . Are you … _Morse_?” one of them asked.

 

Morse took a few halting steps backward and then spun around on the spot, striding out of the room at full speed, a rolling of footfalls sounding behind him. He flew back through the fairy-light shimmer of rooms, gathering speed, and then down a corridor, knocking into a waiter as he ran, upsetting a tray full of glasses, leaving the sound of broken glass and curses behind him.

He dared not turn around to see if the chaos had at all slowed his pursuers, but rather ran on, darting though a curtain made of strings of glittering beads and coming out into the ballroom, where that awful band was starting up a new song, a jangle of a thing, all brute beat and the same three unrelenting chords over and over. Morse flew around the edges of the dance floor, jostling through the crowds as he went, casting a look behind him over his shoulder. Over the heads of the crowds, he could see the beaded curtains part with unnecessary force, as if someone had burst through in anger.

They were still following him, then.

He turned and kept going, taking long strides until he had reached the other end of the ballroom and ran out, flying through another rain shower of shimmering beads.

 

Damn it. It wasn’t fair. This was Deare, all Deare’s doing. If it weren’t for Deare, Morse need not fear these men. If it weren’t for him and his vendetta against him, he might have been here in his uniform, on duty. He might have walked calmly through the place until he found Bixby, until he could deliver the message that sealed the case, that brought all the pieces together into a picture that was undeniably clear.

 

It was one thing to solve a case while running from a madman.

It was quite another to solve a case while running from a madman and from the police, too.

 

Morse raced down another corridor, when, suddenly, he heard the heavy sound of footfalls behind him.

 

How was it that they had they caught up with him already?

 

He ran around a corner and then on ahead to a door at the end of the next hall. He tore it open, and inside, he found a hidden and winding staircase.

Morse cast another quick look over his shoulder, breathing heavily. The men had not quite caught up with him after all, had not come round the final corner yet.

He went through the door and closed it quietly behind him, beginning a sprint up the stairs.

 

This might work, this might well be his salvation—if he could disappear behind that door as if in a vanishing cabinet, run through the upstairs and back down again, he would pop out in an entirely different place in the house altogether—finally losing those men and finally, with any luck, finding Bixby.

 

Morse reached the top of the first flight and spun around the landing, but soon, loud footsteps sounded behind him, sharp and echoing behind him on the wooden stair.

 

Oh hell. Oh hell.  

 

They had seen him.  

 

But no.

It wasn’t them.

 

It wasn’t two pairs of footfalls.

Only one.

 

Footfalls that sounded vaguely familiar.

 

And suddenly, Morse’s heart surged, suddenly, he knew where he had heard those heavy footsteps before: at Christ Church Cathedral, right before he felt that stinging pain in his side.

It was just like that night at Christ Church, just like it, and he was dizzy with a flailing sense of déjà vu, and they were right, they were all right—Thursday and Tony and all of them—he couldn’t do it after all, he was only prey, just as Gull had said, he was an antelope that had allowed itself to be separated from the herd as the lion pursued it, he had fallen right into a trap, and now he would die here in this hidden stairwell, now he would not be spared one humiliation, he would die in this ridiculous costume, he would die running away.

 

No.

He wouldn’t die running.

He was done with running. Finished with it.

 

Morse stopped and wheeled around on the stairs, his chest heaving, his nostrils flaring as he breathed hard, struggling to regain a sense of calm. 

And, then, there he was, that man.

 

Gull stopped just a few steps below, his dark eyes in the shadowed stairway suddenly soft with a broken sort of light.

And then he smiled.

“Endeavour,” he said.

 

And Morse threw himself at the man, knocking him backwards, so that they both toppled down the flight of steps with a crash. And the man yelled out, and Morse was screaming, shouting, even though he could find no words. His only prayer, his only hope was to make enough noise that they might be heard over the infernal racket of that awful band, grinding out their awful and hellish and infernal racket below.

 

But then, out of the corner of his eye, Morse saw a flash of silver.

And then, in a burst of sharp pain at his temple, the world went suddenly to black.

 


	19. Chapter 19

Thursday stood before the great stone house on Lake Silence, keeping careful watch as a steady stream of party guests milled across the fairy-lit and blue shadowed lawns, making their way up the steps and through wide front doors thrown open to the cool of the night, leaving only a low burble of conversation behind them.

A fancy dress party, no less. Christ.

 

Gull could be anywhere, concealed beneath any number of disguises. He could be any of the men hidden behind black or silver or gold masquerade masks, any of the men donning broad-rimmed hats or cloaks with the collars turned up, obscuring their faces. Thursday kept an eye on all of them, appraising any of the men who passed who seemed to be of Gull’s approximate height and build.

 

What was more, Bixby’s place was a maze of a house, the largest and most sprawling of all of the ostentatious homes nestled amidst the dark firs around Lake Silence, with any number of ways in and out—there were all sorts of service entrances and French doors leading out into the gardens— all of which, now, were being kept under close guard.

 

Thursday had claimed the front doors as his own surveillance point; Gull had shown such impudence, had so seemed to relish flaunting himself right under their noses, that the Inspector rather thought that if Gull _were_ to appear, he’d come right this way, that he would march right up the front steps with all the swagger of a guest of honor.

 

And Thursday intended to be there if he did.

 

The Inspector shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying to ease his sense of restlessness. All of his old instincts were on high alert.

Over the course of the past few weeks, he had increasingly found himself needled by that familiar sense of disquiet, that sense that he was missing something, that there were more forces at play in this case than might meet the eye.

 

Earlier that day, Strange had gone out to take up his shift standing post at the old Wolvercote Inn—safeguarding the place from journalists and curiosity-seekers, or from anyone who might have motive to tamper with the scene of the crime—only to return to the nick within the space of an hour, reporting that he had been kicked off duty, that some men from Special Branch had arrived and told him that they would be taking over, that they would be assuming the responsibility for the abandoned guest house—where Morse and the real Dr. Cronyn had been held— from here on out.

 

So, for the second time in a few months, Special Branch was sticking its nose in.

 

The question was: Why?

 

Thursday couldn’t help but wonder if Special Branch’s sudden interest had anything to do with the information that Morse had hidden on the walls there, with the numbers and the formulas that, at first glance, looked only to be the black splinters of exploding trees.

But how could Special Branch have known about Morse’s painting? No one had seen the room other than himself, Jakes—whom he trusted above all of his men—and Fancy, who Thursday was quite certain had not noticed the numbers in the painting, and, even if he had, would not have known what to make of them.

 

Was someone at the head office keeping tabs on Morse still, then? Did someone at Special Branch think it prudent to follow up on what had happened, on the off chance that Morse had left some such thing behind him?

Or did Morse himself, wherever the hell he was, have the acumen to tell someone what it was he had painted on those walls?

 

Thursday would have liked to believe it was the latter. The idea _was_  a comfort. If Morse had the wherewithal to realize the danger inherent in what he had done—and had reported it to the proper channels—that was certainly an indication that, wherever he was, Morse was thinking clearly, that he wasn’t going off half-cocked, driven on by mere blind panic.

 

But that possibility led to another question.

 

If Morse _had_ managed to tell someone from Special Branch about the formulas in the painting, while at the same time remaining on the run, then . . . . well. . . .  

Well then who on earth would he have told?

 

Thursday was pondering this even as he kept watch, when, suddenly, his attention was diverted by a sudden break in the stream of guests that surged like a river up the wide stone steps.

At the front doors, a large figure was battling his way against the current of the crowds, struggling to get out of the house and out into the courtyard. It was DC Strange, elbowing his way through, and then marching along straight towards him, with a sense of purpose that drew Thursday’s sharp eyes at once.

 

“Constable?” Thursday asked.

“Sir,” Strange replied. “I just saw Morse. Inside. At the party.”  

“Morse? _”_ Thursday replied.

“Yes, sir. He was asking all sorts of questions. About . . . Well. About ACC Deare. And then he took off. I asked him if you knew if he was there, and he said . . . . Well. He said, ‘ _I think so._ ’”

Strange raised his eyebrows as he reported Morse’s inscrutable answer, as if to ask the Inspector if he knew what Morse might have meant by it.

 

“Oh, he did, did he?” Thursday asked.

 

Well. Didn’t that beat all.

 

That could mean only one thing: that Morse _had_ been here at the house all along, just as Thursday had suspected, that Morse had heard him all too well when Thursday had called out _“Good night, Morse,”_  in utter exasperation.

 

Goddamn it.

 

But then, why hadn’t Bixby mentioned? Had Morse bamboozled the art historian somehow into keeping quiet?

It was odd; they had seemed to know one another, Morse and Bixby, on that day that Bixby and Gull had come into the station, but they didn’t seem to be friends, exactly. Morse had seemed slightly antagonistic towards the man, in fact, slightly belittling, as if underwhelmed by the man’s claim to expertise.

 

Although that didn’t necessarily mean much. Morse was often that way with anyone he met.

 

Or could it be that Bixby had honestly not known that Morse was there, somewhere about the place? The pile on the lake was a labyrinth, to be sure. Was Morse above stealing his way inside, slipping in through one of the many doors, keeping himself concealed, in order to lie in wait, to be here for the party, on the good chance that this might well prove to be it, the point at which the all of the threads of the case might come together?  

 

To be a part of things should, in fact, all hell break loose?

 

At this point, who knew what Morse might be thinking?

 

Thursday said nothing, but only gestured with a jerk of his chin for Strange to follow him, and then made his way with long strides up the steps, using his bulk to cut through the crowds much as Strange had done.

He had barely made it into Great Hall when he saw Trewlove, pacing along at a quick clip, followed by Fancy.

 

“Sir,” she said. “I think I just saw Morse cut through here.”

 

She frowned, then, looking slightly doubtful.

“At least . . . I _think_ it was Morse.”

 

“What?” Strange asked. “Was he wearing a kilt? With his face painted blue?”

“Yes,” Trewlove said.  

“Then it certainly was,” Strange confirmed.

 

“A _kilt?_ ” Thursday asked, feeling a fresh surge of impatience.

 

How had Morse gotten his hands on a costume, to top all? Someone was helping him, then, from some quarter.

 

“And where was he?” Thursday asked.

“In the ballroom,” Trewlove said. “I saw him going all along the edge of the dance floor. He kept looking back over his shoulder, as if he thought he was being pursued.”

“Yeah,” Fancy said. “And then he ran right through the doorway that leads out here. I think he must have gone down around that way,” he added, with a nod to his left, “but it was tough to tell. He was moving pretty fast. As if someone was chasing him.”

 

Fancy turned, then, and was just beginning to guide them around the corner he had indicated, when, suddenly, two men in evening suits were there, coming from the other direction, stopping right before them, blocking their path.

 

“That would have been us,” the shorter of the two men said, as if picking up the thread of Fancy’s last sentence.

 

“DS Townsend,” he added by way of an introduction, and then he nodded toward the man standing next to him. “And DC Bailey. County police.  We’re under strict orders to seal this area until PC Morse is found.”

Thursday snorted. “Yes, yes,” he said. “So I’ve heard. You might think it would be Gull on whom you’d be keeping an eye, not wasting time chasing one of our own. So where is he now, Morse? If you’re so keen?”

“He went up a back stairwell,” the sergeant said.  “All the stairways are being kept under surveillance while we get word to uniform to search the upper floors.”

“Is that right?” Thursday asked, beginning to push his way past them.

 

“Sir,” Townsend said. “This area is being secured. I can’t allow you to pass.”

“I’m a detective inspector," Thursday replied. "If I see fit to check on something, I check on it.”

“You may outrank me, but, in light of the fact that the suspect is boarding . . .”

“The _suspect_?”  Thursday snapped.

“… at your house, I’m afraid I must ask you where your loyalties lie.”

 

Where his _loyalties lie_?

Eh, buggar it.

Obviously, the man had been watching too many movies.

 

Thursday looked at the man for a long moment. And then he turned on his heel and started off around the corner, to a long corridor lined with an endless series of white doors.

 

 “Sir!” the sergeant protested. He set himself in front of Thursday’s path, moving to block him once more, but Thursday had had enough of County’s farce.

“Oh, get the hell out of my way,” he said, without heat, barreling past the man as if he were the merest of inconveniences.

 

Thursday made his way down the hall, followed by Trewlove, Strange and Fancy. If Morse felt he was being followed, his instinct would have been to put as much distance between himself and his pursuers as possible; Thursday felt certain that he would have made a beeline straight for the door at the end of the hall.

He went to the door and opened it, and found that it did, indeed, lead to a service stairwell.

 

 “Morse!” Thursday called, shouting up the echoing passageway.

 

He started up the stairs, then, his footsteps resounding in the narrow space.

 

“Morse!” he called again. “That’s enough, now. It’s just me, lad.”

 

Thursday headed up the next flight, went around the corner of the landing, and then he stopped short.

 

Lying on the floor separating the flights of stairs was a heavy, silver candlestick, stained red with blood.

 

“Blimey,” Strange whispered behind him.

 

Thursday scowled, darkly.

 

He sank down to one knee and studied the glossy wood floor, taking in the stains of red blood and the smudges of blue that he found there. He ran one broad finger through the thickest smear of blue and held it to his nose—it carried the slightly waxy scent of theatrical face paint.

“Morse had his face painted blue, you said?” Thursday asked.

“Yeah,” Fancy said quietly.

“Mmmmm,” Thursday rumbled.

 

So. Someone had finally caught up with Morse, then. Here, the lad had ended in his run. He’d been hit over the head, most likely, and fallen right here, at the bottom of the steps.

But who was it who had Morse now? There were so many after him, it seemed; the lad had been beset at both ends. Had it been Gull? Or some yobs from County? At this point, Thursday wouldn’t put it past them.

One thing he was sure of: he would tear this place apart until he found Morse.

And then, orders of no orders, he’d take him straight home, haul him right down the hall and past the hat stand, which was the only place Morse had left in this pig’s ear of a case, as far as Thursday was concerned.

 

****

Morse opened his eyes, but the world was still black.

For a moment, he could do nothing but lie there, looking up at the emptiness before him in confusion, until he realized that the darkness was glittering with sparks of light, that it was high and arching, a world without walls, blurred and indefinite.

Was it the night sky, perhaps?

Or did the sparks of light exist only in his mind—were they simply the result of fired-off synapses striking the keys of his optic nerves, flashing off and on to the same beat as the pulse of pain in his head?

Morse blinked lazily, trying to puzzle it out, but it seemed as if he could not focus his eyes properly. He blinked again, trying to clear them, but to no avail.

It was disorienting, the drifting darkness that seemed to envelop him; he was aware only of the black and of the sparks of light and of the sparks of pain and, then, of a warm and fluid sensation, sliding down the side of his face.

 

He shifted his body and tried to sit up, stretching his legs out before him, and, as he did so, he realized that— yes—it was the night sky arching above him, because now he could see his legs, white in the shadows, with their glitter of gold hair that stood out in the low light, and the blue of his thick socks, appearing, in the darkness, to be only one shade lighter than black.

 

He was somewhere outside, somewhere under a starlit sky.

 

Morse worked to sit up completely, then, to get a better handle on his bearings, but when he tried to ease the uncomfortable tightness in his shoulders, he found that he could not move them . . . . because . . . because, somehow, his arms were pinned behind him. He seemed to register this by degrees—the ache in his shoulders, the inability to use his arms to push himself up, and then a cutting edge of roughness at his wrists, as if a rope was binding them tightly together. 

Once he understood this, he blinked again, looking about sharply, fearfully, trying to make sense of it all.

 

Where was he, exactly? What had happened? How had he come to be here?  

 

And then, he heard a voice.

 

“Endeavour?”

 

And Morse scowled.

And no, he didn’t like to be called that.

 

He swung his head around, clumsily, searching for the direction of the voice—and then his heart was beating, surging far too wildly in his chest, as if it were a bird, struggling and fighting and thrashing under his ribs.

 

It was him. It that man. Gull.

 

The man’s eyes were dark with a broken sort of light, a fanatical gleam that sent Morse’s mind spinning, his heart flying faster and faster with every beat.

Morse could see at once—just from one look at the man’s face—that any pretense to sanity, any mask he had worn, any façade that he had held onto as he had posed as Dr. Cronyn, had gone, had vanished, had flown out the window.

 

Bixby was right.

The man had come, wearing no disguise whatsoever.

 

“Endeavour?” the man asked again.

Morse tried to answer, but he couldn’t find his voice; it was as if he had somehow misplaced it, as if, during his period of unconsciousness, his body had been catapulted into the future, leaving the rest of him somewhere far behind it.

 

Morse didn’t know where he was or what was happening.

He didn’t know what that man was planning.

But he _did_ know that he did not want to be called by that name. By that man least of all.

 

Even _that man_ had not called him that.

 

“No,” Morse managed, at last.

“ _No?”_ Gull replied. “What do you mean?”

 

But Morse only shook his head—a mistake, he realized, too late, as the motion left him with a feeling as if he were falling, with an overpowering sense of vertigo.

 

“No?” Gull tried again. “You can’t tell me you aren’t ready. We’re going now.”    

 

Morse pondered this for a moment.

 

“Going where?” he asked

He looked around again—they were outside, under the night sky, yes, and . . . and there was a low wall of stone around them. And there were . . . . dark fir trees, bristling softly in the night wind . . . or rather . . . 

 

Or rather the tips of fir trees.

 

They were on a roof. They were on the roof of Bixby’s house on Lake Silence. Now that his mind was clearing, he realized that he could still hear the party—the distant thump of the music and the dull rumble of the crowds below.

 

“We’re getting away from here,” Gull said. “From all of this.”

 

Morse shook his head, lazily, trying to clear the fog, and again his stomach churned and the world seemed to spin. So he stopped and focused instead on one point at toe of his shoe. And then he scowled, considering.

What was Gull on about? The man made no sense.

 

“You’ll never get away from here,” Morse said, slowly. “The place is surrounded by police. You must know that.”

 

Gull walked over and knelt right before him, then, and Morse saw at once a look of triumph light his fanatical and feverish face, a look that seared right through Morse like a knife, like a cold, metal shiver of fear.

 

“That’s no matter,” the man said. “We’re going where none of them can follow, poor finite creatures. We’ll be free of them, free of it, free of the stain of it all, free of the rot, at last.”

 

With a flash that was like another white pulse of pain through his head, Morse suddenly understood just what Gull meant, just where he was heading.

 

 _“What?_ ” he cried.

 

“We’re just not made for this world, you and I. It’s been a disappointment, hasn’t it?  It’s all gross matter, miasma and delusion. But we’re going where none of that can touch us now.”

“And where’s that?” Morse asked.

 

Gull smiled, then, and, with a flash of silver that was like a fresh sear of terror, he pulled out a knife.

Morse could feel his heart beating high in his throat, and he steeled himself for the worst—but then, the man was coming around behind him, cutting away the ropes. The moment they fell away, Gull grabbed him by his upper arms and hauled him roughly to his feet.

 

“It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for,” he said. “Time to spread your wings at last, Endeavour.”

 

 _“What?_ ” Morse cried again.

 

“We’re aeons, you and I. Shards of that divine spark. We’ll shed this world, leave it all behind us. And we won’t be alone. Not ever. It’s what we were made for. We’ll never be alone, in that other world.”

 

And then Gull was dragging him up, pushing him onward, so that his legs were tripping underneath him, shoving him forward toward the low stone ledge that went around the edge of the rooftop.  

 

“That’s rubbish!” Morse cried again, struggling against him. “You’re mad! _You’re mad!”_

 

But Gull kept moving him forwards, despite all of his thrashing, despite his frantic attempts to break free. Nothing Morse did seemed to slow his progress; he simply kept steadily on, on towards the roof’s edge, dragging Morse along before him, as if he were a rag doll.

 

“We’ll fall like stones!” Morse shouted. “We won’t be aeons. We’ll simply be dead!”

“Oh, our bodies might fall," Gull answered, "but the divine spark will live on. We’ll be there, in the stars. And we’ll be remembered. We’ll be as gods.”

 

In his struggling, Morse managed at last to catch the man hard in the ribs with his elbow, and Gull cried out and spun him around, so that their faces were inches apart; and when he spoke, there was a new edge to his voice, something shattered and broken, and . . . and how had they not seen the danger hidden at the heart of the man right away? How had they not seen the truth of him from the very start?

 

“I won’t be alone!” Gull shouted. “Do you understand me? I won’t be locked up. We’ll never be locked up! We’ll never be alone again!”

Gull shook him by the shoulders as he spoke, so that Morse's vision blurred with the movement, so that he felt as if was falling, and . . . and this couldn’t be happening. It must be some sort of a nightmare, it must be.  
  


Morse willed himself to wake up, to open his eyes, but, no—surely, he couldn’t be imagining all of this—the coolness of the night air, the fresh scent of the fir trees, the thump of the Wildwood’s drum set below, the background noise of the party that went on and on, even as his world was ending.

 

It was real, it was all real, and the man was mad, and he was hoisting him up, like a dead weight, pulling him up onto the ledge alongside of him.

Morse looked down to the stone courtyard below, and the world was flying off, rotating on its axis, as he stood, a trembling and uncertain point, in the center of a gyrating wheel.

 

There were calls, then, rising to him from below, as the people in the crowd looked up to them, as they began to notice what was happening on the roof . . . but their voices sounded as distant in Morse’s ears as the cries of a faraway crow on a winter’s morning.

Gull shuffled him about, so that Morse was standing slightly in front of him, and Morse opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out, only a strangled cry of protest.

And this was it, this was the end: He would die as he so long had lived—speechless, utterly without words.

 

But then, amidst the confusion and the shouts of the crowds below, another voice emerged, one that was right with him on the rooftop, calm and composed, as if rolling out to Morse from over an ocean, sounding over the hammer of the blood thundering in his ears.

 

“Ah. Morse. I’ve been wondering where you’d gone off to.”

 

Morse felt Gull’s grip on his upper arms tighten even as the madman seemed to freeze into place, halting him on their clumsy journey—on their deranged parody of a three-legged race— over the edge of the roof.

 

Morse looked up in the direction of the voice, the faintest stirrings of hope surging through him.

 

It was Bixby.

 

But there was something different about him.

And then Morse realized: he was no longer wearing that suit of armor, but rather only a simple, vintage evening suit and a black masquerade mask, pushed up high onto his forehead.

It was as if he had changed tactics midstream, as if he had switched gears . . . as if perhaps he had known all along . . . or else had realized in the midst of things … that it would be he, Morse, who would be Gull’s target, should he be drawn into Bixby’s glittering trap of a party. 

 

“You’ve been _wondering_?” Morse cried.

 

Because it _was_ as if he had known, as if he had known all along. And how could he stand there, now, so calmly? Did he not see he was about to be hurled off the _roof?_

 

But Bixby ignored him, looking instead to Gull.

“Rather pressing my hospitality, aren’t you, old man?” he asked. “I like to give my guests the run of the house, but I don’t expect people to come up here, necessarily. I mean, a bit of lovelorn stargazing I wouldn’t object to, but I don’t typically allow guests to bring people up here in order to toss them from the rooftop. Rather puts a dampener on things.”

 

Gull redoubled his grip on Morse’s arms and turned to Bixby, then, and, as he did so, he pivoted Morse towards him, too, twisting him about on the spot, on that precarious point on the ledge. And when Gull spoke, Morse could feel the warm fug of the man’s breath behind him, right at his nape.    

 

“Don’t take one step closer,” Gull breathed. “You stay back. This is _my_ moment. My own! I won’t have it soiled by some idiot of an Epicurean, by some shallow thimble, by …. by a candle end that’s been blown out!"

 

Bixby smiled, bemused, evidently, by the man’s words.

 

“Ah,” he said. “You know, I think I might use that sometime, if you don’t mind.”

 

Gull turned from him, then, with a snort of contempt, and pulled Morse away, so that he was once more looking out over the courtyard, and the world was a spin, a surreal mosaic of dark stone and pale, upturned faces.

 

“There is it,” Gull crooned. “Our audience. This is a moment that will be remembered. We’ll be heralded as gods, you and I.”

 

“It will be all anyone can talk about for a year,” Bixby conceded. “But within five, you'll simply be a bit of party gossip, next-door to a ghost story.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Gull replied. “Look down there. Look at them. They won’t soon forget this.”  

 

Morse knew that he shouldn’t look down, that looking down would only serve to increase his sense of vertigo, but he couldn’t help himself, he couldn’t help but look out over the crowds. And, as he did, he realized with a jolt just how many of the people below he recognized, even from this distance. They were all there: Strange and Jakes—the sharp face and the round, friendly one wearing identical stunned expressions, their brows furrowed—and Fancy was there, and Trewlove.

 

And then, amidst a circle of guests, Morse saw that Tony, too, was there, his elegant and even features cast into a look of utter horror, even as he stood, ever the casually poised aristocrat, with his hand in his pocket, his head tilted just so.

 

Morse swallowed.

Even if he survived this, he realized, he’d never live it down.

 

It would have been better by far if he had never contacted Tony. If Thursday had never gone out to his house asking about him last summer.

Tony would never forgive this, considering that he had just given him a telling off, considering that he had just warned him—most likely not more than an hour or so ago—that this was exactly the end he was hurtling himself on to. He was right about him, all along, Tony. Morse should have known that anything he attempted was doomed to end in failure. Even disaster. 

Morse looked down at him, and tried to put into his eyes some sort of apology, some sort of excuse, and then, with a lurch, he realized that, even though he was here at this great height, Tony knew, somehow—knew that his thoughts and his focus were entirely on him.

 

And as their eyes met, Morse found that—even though he knew that he ought to be afraid—he was overcome, instead, by a wave of vast and infinite sadness.

 

It was cruel, somehow, that right as he had found friends—a family, even of sorts—he would lose them. There would be no more mornings sitting in his chair in the corner of the Thursdays’ dining room, no more shared sandwiches and pints and confidences with Fancy at the Eagle and Child. Jakes and Trewlove and Strange, he had just been beginning to understand, but now he would never know anything more about them other than what their faces looked like at the moment he went over the ledge of Bixby’s roof.

 

And Tony. There would be no more drives in his Egyptian blue automobile, flying along with the top down as the firs of Lake Silence blurred by, no more picnics in the rain, no more tentative and searching kisses over the gear shift of his ridiculous car.  

He wished that Tony would go back inside. He wished he could tell him just to go inside, for god’s sakes.

If Morse was going to fail, he wished that Tony would simply let him fail, simply let him fall, in private. He had no wish to die knowing he was responsible for inflicting upon him such a sight.

 

Morse looked at him, trying to will him to read his mind, but Tony remained just where he was, looking back at him, refusing to look away, until Morse found it was he who was forced to drop his gaze.

 

And when he did, Morse's eyes fell on Thursday. Thursday, who had helped him to find a new life—and who was now watching him, his expression unreadable—right as he was preparing to lose it.

 

Morse felt a fresh ache of loneliness, then, to think of his room at the Thursdays’ left empty, the one room that had felt like his own since he had left his mother’s house. Strangely enough, he felt he would miss the birds he had painted there almost as much as the people he had met over these past few months.

Would the Thursdays paint over them? The spiraling birds and the billowing trees and the tumbling vines? He supposed they would have to.  No one would want to rent the room as it was.

 

He would be gone and he would not leave one thing of himself behind.

 

It was just as Bixby had said.

In five years, he’d be nothing more than a ghost story.

Just as once, in the span of five years, he’d become nothing more than a ghost.

 

Morse sagged in Gull’s grip at the thought of it; it was as if the glimmer of hope he had felt upon hearing Bixby’s voice had drained right out of him.

 

But still, even as time seemed to slow, seemed to end, Bixby went right on talking. At the back of his mind, Morse could hear their conversation— Bixby’s smooth voice and reasoned inquiries, Gull’s livid retorts—but he couldn’t follow the thread of their debate; he couldn’t take his eyes from Thursday’s grim face.

There was no time for any further words. And so, he tried to say what he could with his eyes.

 

_I’m sorry. I must have made a mistake, somewhere along the line._

_I don't know where, but . . ._

_I'm sorry._

 

Thursday, in the meanwhile, was watching his face carefully, and suddenly, he took a few steps forward, as if he might reach him, even here, or as if he might be able to catch him, should he fall, even though from this height that would surely be impossible.

 

And just then, Morse felt Gull’s breath, hot again at his nape, and he realized that that man, too, was looking down at Thursday, over Morse’s shoulder.   

 

“I know who you couldn’t save, Inspector!” he cried.

 

Thursday’s face darkened.

 

 _I’m sorry,_ Morse wanted to say.

_I’m sorry._

 

And then Bixby was taking another step forward, inching closer.

“Well, this has all been rather interesting,” he said, “but I’m afraid it’s a poor host who allows his guests to be thrown from the highest tower. So if you’ll just…”

 

“I said stay back!” Gull spat. “You can’t understand. You can’t _begin_ to understand. It's useless, talking to you. Look at you. A creature of this world if ever there was one. With your parties and your paintings and your suits and your Scotch. What can _you_ understand of the higher world, of the world above the flux you so revel in?”

 

And then, suddenly, Morse seemed to find his voice.

 

“But . . .”  Morse sputtered.  “But I’m an atheist! I don’t believe in any such thing, either!”

 

Bixby widened his dark eyes at him alarmingly.

 

And why? Why? Why shouldn’t he at least protest, if this was to be his fate?

 

Because he should be doing something.

Something else.

It dawned on him, then, that Bixby was keeping the man distracted for a reason.

To give Morse the chance to do something.

And that whatever it was he was supposed to be doing, he wasn’t doing it.

 

Morse turned his head again, looked again down into the courtyard, down at the faces below, as if he hoped some help might come from that quarter. But all he could see in face after face was his own shock mirrored back to him. Bixby’s voice and the man’s roar faded into the background once more, into a mere hum at the back of his mind, and then Morse’s focus fell on one man, standing alone in a darkened corner, a spare man wearing a trim and spartan uniform, eyeing him steadily through the sight of a raised gun.

 

The moment their eyes met, Mr. Bright nodded, almost imperceptibly.

 

And at once, Morse understood.

 

Without warning or hesitation, Morse twisted sharply in the man’s grip, swinging his head down.  And, in the next moment, a shot rang out over him, so close he could feel the rush of it in his hair.

 

Suddenly, Morse’s center of gravity seemed to shift. Gull was obviously hit, he fell back, but his grip on Morse’s arms remained. Morse didn’t know if Gull was alive or dead, but he had no wish at all to fall against the man either way, he had no wish to be anywhere near that man for one second longer, and so he hurled himself sideways and forwards, and then he was stumbling across the stone ledge, and he was flying.

He reached out blindly, trying to break his fall, the pain in his right hand sharp and shooting as his palms hit the cold stone. But then, the angle at which he fell seemed to send his own weight working against him, and the next thing he knew, his legs were sliding, falling not against stone, but against nothing, swinging the rest of his body down along with them.

 

Instinctively, Morse redoubled his grip on the ledge, trying to right himself, but it was too late; in a moment, he was simply hanging there, clinging to the edge of the low stone wall, holding on for dear life as his legs dangled uselessly beneath him.

He twisted and turned, then, trying to find a toehold to help propel himself back up, but the soles of his shoes merely slipped and slid against the smooth stone walls.

 

And then, suddenly, Bixby was there above him, his tanned face uncharacteristically somber as he looked down at him.

 

“Give me your hand,” he said.

But Morse simply hung there, momentarily stunned. He didn’t know _what_ the hell to do next.

 

He couldn’t reach up to Bixby with his left hand, because he doubted that his injured right hand was strong enough to hold him for the seconds that it would take Bixby to catch it. Nor could he reach up with his right; the thought of the man grabbing at his right hand, of squeezing it with the force necessary to pull him up, made his stomach roil.

 

Bixby seemed to understand.

 

“Aim a bit higher; I’ll grab your wrist,” he said.

 

But _could_ he swing himself up that high? Would Bixby be reckless enough to lean over far enough to meet him halfway?

 

And no. He couldn’t bring himself to do it.

 

Morse’s breath seemed to freeze in his lungs, to stop completely, even as his heart was racing. Every second that he waited, he felt his grip weakening. And yet he couldn’t bring himself to act, either.

 

And then, Bixby was smiling.

 

 _“What?_ ” Morse sputtered. “What’s funny about this?”

“I’m sorry old man. But I can’t help wishing I was down in the courtyard right now. I feel a bit as if I’m missing my chance.”

 

Terror was replaced by anger then—anger and a surge of adrenaline—pumping straight through him, all the way through to his voice. Why the hell would the man wish such a thing? If he were there, he'd be no help to him whatsoever. 

 

 _“What?_ ” Morse cried.

 

Bixby’s Sphinx-like smile broadened.

 

“Well, you know, old man. Is it true, what they say about kilts? I mean….”  And here, he leaned down, lowering his voice, conspiratorially.

 

“I mean, do you have anything on under there?”

 

And that was _it._

Morse was finished with it.

Surely, Morse would not rest until he killed the man.

 

In one desperate burst of movement, Morse lurched upwards, aiming himself like a projectile right at Bixby, determined to get that smile right off of that suave and smug face.

As Morse shot forward, Bixby caught his arms at the elbows, and the feel of the firm grip of Bixby's hands seemed to steady something inside of him. Morse scrambled again to catch a toehold, and, this time, he managed to hoist himself up, even as Bixby was pulling him back over the ledge.

 

And then Morse was lying on the roof, looking once more up at the dome of black, glittering with sparks of stars and sparks of pain.

In the next instant, Bixby’s face was there, looking over him.

 

“Morse?"

"Morse? Are you all right, old man?” he asked.

 

Morse thought this over for a moment.

 

“I think I have a concussion,” he said, at last.

 

“Do you?” Bixby asked.

Then he shook his head.

 

“Well,” he said. “It’s as good as an excuse as any, I suppose.”

****

It was then that time seemed to slow, that the world fell away, that the voices around him seemed to rush off into the distance, like crashing waves drawn back into the sea.

His heart had begun to settle in his chest, but he could still feel the beat of it, hear the pump and the pulse of it, knocking about soundly in his ears. Everything seemed to be happening at a safe distance, sights and sounds and voices reduced to mere impressions, like single brushstrokes that Morse could not configure into any larger image. 

 

Dimly, Morse registered that Gull was there, pressing one hand to his bleeding shoulder, as he was led away by Jakes and Strange.

“You think it’s the end?” he called. “This is where it starts. We’re the same, you and I. I’m the only one who knows the truth of you, Endeavour! I alone!”

 

“That’s enough out of you,” a familiar voice replied, in a low and impatient rumble.

 

And then Thursday was there, then, looking into his face. He was holding a white cloth to the side of his head. It stung like hell.

 

“Morse? Can you say something, lad?”

 

But Morse could only stare back, shake his head like a deep sea-diver trying to shake the water from his ears.

 

"Morse?" 

 

But Morse could only close his eyes and sigh deeply, taking in a breath of air filled with the scent of warm wool and tobacco, until he felt his heart slowing further, working to regulate its rhythm, steading its mad pace under his ribs. 

 

He moved his left hand to cover Thursday's, to take the cloth so that he could hold it for himself to the side of his head. He hadn't realized until then that he was bleeding, that his own blood had been the cause of that warm and liquid feeling running down his face. 

He scowled, and tried not to think about it, taking instead another calming breath. 

 

"You're all right, Morse," Thursday said. 

 

****

 

The next thing Morse knew, he was being bundled into the back seat of the black Jag. A part of him felt concerned by this—he wasn’t finished, somehow; somehow, it seemed there was something else that he was supposed to do.

But mostly, he was grateful—grateful that they weren’t asking him questions, grateful that they were allowing him to simply keep silent for a while, grateful that they were steering him along, giving the whirling leaves of his mind the chance to settle once more to ground. 

He needn’t speak. He needn’t think. He needn’t do anything, really. 

Thank god. 

 

As soon as he was safely stowed in the car, Morse half-collapsed, exhausted, and lay down across the back seat.

 

“Oy!” Jakes said at once. “Sit up! You’ll get that paint all over the upholstery!”

Morse blinked for a moment, perplexed, and then sat up. And Jakes was right; there was a smudge of blue face paint on the black of the seat. A color that stirred a memory, a memory of sitting on the edge of Bixby’s bed as Sylive painted his face.

 

And Bixby.

 

There was something else, something that Morse was forgetting. And now Jakes had started the car and was making his way out of the circular drive, and soon the car would carry him away and . . . .

 

“Stop!” Morse cried. “Stop the car!”

 

Jakes seemed to startle: he must have been surprised that Morse had suddenly spoken, and so fervently, because he actually complied, hitting the brakes.

He and Thursday turned around in their seats, then, eying him critically.

 

“Morse?” Thursday asked at once.

 

“I . . .” Morse said, wildly. “I forgot something.”

 _“Forgot something?_ ” Thursday asked.

“I . . .”  Morse began again, and he was already throwing open the car door and scrambling to get out, his legs too coltish, suddenly, too ungainly, it seemed, for his body.

 “I forgot something," he said, again. 

 

Miraculously, Morse managed to rise to his feet, to steady himself, and then he was running toward the house.

 

"Morse!" shouted Thursday.

 

Morse spun around and held out his hands, placatingly, to Thursday and Jakes.

“Just . . . just wait there," he said. "I’ll be right back. I . . . I’ve just forgotten something."

And then he tore back around and was darting up the stone steps, taking them almost two at a time.

 

Inside, an army of liveried servants were doing their best to put the house to rights. The floor was a clutter of glitter and broken glass and burst balloons and lost sheer scarves—the detritus left behind, no doubt, when the crowds had rushed out of the house to see what was happening outside, to get a glimpse of the drama unfolding on the roof.

One of the men looked at Morse as if to stop him and ask what he was doing, where he was going—but then he shrugged, wearily, as if nothing else he saw that night would surprise him—and Morse was allowed to pass unhindered, back through the hallways of the house, back to Bixby’s study.

 

He pulled open the door and found Bixby, there, behind his desk, considering a sheet of paper.

He thought Bixby might be surprised to see him back again so soon, but instead, he merely looked up at him and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“What?” Morse asked.

“Why didn’t you tell me? We’re on the same side, aren’t we?”

“Tell you what?” Morse asked.  

 

“You knew,” Bixby said, simply.

 

This gave Morse pause. And then he found that he knew just what Bixby meant.

 

“And so did you,” Morse replied.

 

“Well,” Bixby conceded. “I didn’t at first. But then . . .”

“But then what?”

“Well. Forgive me, old man, but you’re fairly transparent at times. There had to be _some_ reason as to why you were suddenly so eager to stay for the party. One might think you of all people might want to make yourself scarce, all things considered.”

Morse said nothing. He expected for Bixby to reprimand him—and was more than ready to point out that what he had done had been no different, really, from what Bixby had planned to do himself, luring Gull to a party with a painting and wrapping himself up in a bow, as it were, offering himself as the next victim in order to lay in a trap.

 

But instead, Bixby only sighed.

“Well, all’s well that ends well, I suppose,” he said.

 

Morse hesitated, attempting to process this through the fog. Because, it hadn't ended. Because.... 

  

“It was Deare,” Morse said. “Deare who killed Frida. Deare and Val Todd."

 

Bixby paused.

 

“That’s what I was coming to tell you. When Gull found me on the stairs. I was talking to DC Strange. _Domesday. 98018._ It’s the name and number of the Masonic lodge to which they belong.”

 

After a long moment, Bixby nodded, thoughtfully.

 

“Right,” he said.

“So . . .”

“So, I’ll take care of it,” he said.

“How?”

“I don’t know, old man. I did have one idea. It’s a bit inelegant, a bit simple, I'm afraid. But it might, perhaps, work.”

“And what’s that?” Morse asked.

“I thought perhaps I might send them each a note from the other, asking to meet at Hastings Grove, and then see who turns up.”

“But that was my i  . . .”  Morse began. But then he stopped, mid-sentence, as Bixby’s face broke into a knowing smile.

“Or I might consider half a dozen other things," Bixby said. "The point is, it’s perhaps for the best if you don’t know too much about it, old man.”

 

And on this point, Morse found he could not argue. After last summer, he had had enough dealings with Special Branch to last for a lifetime.

“Fair enough,” Morse said.

 

And then his eyes fell on Bixby's desk. Pettifer's black notebook was there, lying on top. It seemed as if it would be only the fair thing to retrieve it, to get Strange out of trouble, since Strange had just done him a fair turn. He wondered, idly, if he might do as Bixby had done, slip the thing away and return it to evidence, without anyone the wiser. Bixby would not need it anymore, after all, as all of its riddles had been deciphered. 

 

Bixby, however, seemed to follow his gaze. "Ah," he said. "I suppose you'll be wanting to return this, then, to Strange. Get him out of the fix he happened into." 

"He _happened into_?" Morse asked wryly, but Bixby only smiled, and took the notebook off his desk, handing it over. 

 

Morse tucked it discreetly into his belt and then extended his hand, to say goodbye, but Bixby only stared at it, hesitating, no doubt, lest he injure it further.

 

“It’s all right,” Morse said. Then he quirked a rueful smile. “Just don’t crush it.”

 

“No,” Bixby said. “It’s not that. It's just, well . . . Handshakes are for goodbyes, Morse.”

 

Morse stood for a moment, confused. It _was_ goodbye, wasn’t it? How many times might their paths be expected to cross on the job? Certainly there couldn't possibly be any more spies and secret agents, any further such intrigues, here in Oxford?

Otherwise, perhaps the MI6 should consider transferring its headquarters to somewhere in Iffey.  

 

But then, Bixby’s broad hand was warm on the small of Morse's back, pulling him in closer, his dark eyes softening to velvet, searching his face as if asking some question . . .  and was the man seriously planning to . . . . ?

 

Bixby's tanned face was slowly moving closer and closer, and Morse knew he ought to ask him what he thought he was doing, but then, something deep within him was unwinding, and he found that he didn't want to pose the question after all. And so he said nothing, only allowed himself to be drawn in, tipping his head until their lips met in the faintest of brushes, until Bixby leaned in lower, sealing his mouth more firmly to his, until Bixby was kissing him with a balance of gentleness and insistence that made Morse’s mind once more go hazy, that made his legs go once again unsteady beneath him.

 

Morse began to feel his knees buckle, and Bixby's hold shifted so that he was supporting more and more of his weight.

Time seemed to still again, as Morse gave himself over to it: to the press of Bixby's lips against his, to the feathery flutter that prompted him to part them further, to the gentle burn of dark stubble as Bixby shifted his face, and to the scent of his aftershave—that seemed to go to his head like Scotch—until at last Bixby pulled away, stepping back, leaving Morse feeling rather stunned.

 

Slowly, he became aware that Bixby was watching him, studying his face appraisingly, rather as if he were an Olympic athlete awaiting his score, as if at any moment he expected Morse to hold up a sign with a number on it.

 

“Yes? No?" Bixby asked, with a slight waver of his head from left to right.  “I had my line about being your knight in shining armor all worked out, but I wasn’t sure how it would go over.”

But Morse found that he could say nothing.

 

Bixby laughed. “Well, that’s all right, old man," he said. "You’ll have plenty of time to think about it. How often can you expect our paths to cross on the job, after all? At this rate, one might think that the MI6 should consider moving its headquarters to Iffey.”

 

********

As Morse crossed back across the dark lawns, he was almost surprised to see that Jakes and Thursday were still there, waiting for him by the black Jag. It had been only fifteen minutes, but it seemed somehow as if a lifetime had passed in the interim.

 

“Well, what did you forget?” Thursday asked, sharply.

“Sir?” 

“What was all that about? You said you forgot something,” Thursday said, nodding meaningfully to his empty hands. "What was it?" 

“Oh,” Morse said. “I . . . Well . . . I . . . I forgot.”

 

Thursday shook his head and swung himself back into the passenger seat of the Jag.

 

And then it all began to catch up with him.  
 

In one sense, the case was over, or, at least, nearly over. Gull and Deare and Todd all either nicked or as good as. 

 

But in another sense, Morse’s work was just beginning.

It would take some doing, he realized, to mend the fragile bonds of trust that he had just been beginning to build in his new life, and that, over the past few weeks, he had already sorely tested—with the Thursdays, with the other officers at Cowley . . .

With Tony.

 

Morse was an awkward sod, really.

 

It might just prove easier to catch a deranged killer and to uncover a cabal of conspiracy amongst some of Oxford's most powerful than to repair the damage Morse had done to what he had hoped would be a fresh new life, one in which his years in the white room might recede far, far away—far off into the rearview mirror.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, Bix, awfully cheeky of you considering this isn't the universe where you guys end up together for thirty years.
> 
>  
> 
> Up next--Deare and Todd get their just deserts . .. and then there will be lots and LOTS of friends and family feels, as Morse settles back in with the Thursdays, reaches a new understanding with Jakes and Mr. Bright, and tries to patch things up with Tony.  
> And also gets one last surprise from Bix!   
> Thanks so much for reading! :D


	20. Chapter 20

By the time Morse stumbled down the steps of Bixby’s grand pile of a house, he was wearing an expression consummate with someone who had recently been clubbed over the head.

 

Which, Thursday supposed, was fair enough—considering that, from the looks of him, he must have been just that.

 

Thursday was quite certain—both from the dazed look in Morse’s eyes and from the unsteadiness of his gait—that the lad must be at least mildly concussed, and the Inspector tried hard to bear this fact in mind when Morse—even after all the song and dance he had made about having ‘forgotten something’—emerged from the place completely empty-handed.  

 

Thursday eyed him sharply.

“Well, what did you forget?” he asked.

 

Morse looked at him, his face blank, and when he spoke, his voice was thick, as if his thoughts were a hundred miles away.

 

 “Sir?”

 “What was all that about? You said you ‘forgot something,’” Thursday prompted.

“Oh,” Morse said. “I . . . Well.  I . . .”

“I forgot.”

 

Thursday snorted softly and shook his head. Then, without further comment, he got back into the Jag, and Morse followed suit, half-collapsing once more onto the back seat—this time, keeping careful to mind that he remained upright, leaning his uninjured temple against the window rather than sprawling across the upholstery, blue paint and bloodied face and all.

 

Jakes glanced up into the rearview mirror and raised his heavy eyebrows.

“Are we ready now?” he asked.

“Yes,” Morse answered.

 

Jakes huffed a laugh and started up the engine. Clearly, the sergeant had meant the question to be rhetorical, but his sarcastic tone had seemed to fly right over Morse’s head.

 

“You’d think I was a bloody chauffeur,” the sergeant muttered.

“Minor concussion,” Thursday answered, by way of apologizing for the lad, and the proof of it was that Morse let their remarks go without protest, without, for once, putting his two cents in.

 

Instead, he kept quiet, slumped against the window, looking vacantly before him.

 

“So,” Jakes asked. “Where are we going?”

“Best if you drop us home, I think,” Thursday said.

“What do you think Division will say about that?”

“I don’t know. Nor do I much care, at this point. They don’t have a leg to stand on, with all of that rot.  Morse is just as sane as they come. Turns out he was right about Dr. Cronyn all along, wasn’t he?”

“Mmmmm,” Jakes hummed.

Thursday stole a glance at Morse in the Jag’s side mirror. He had expected Morse to speak up at that, at least. To say, “ _That’s right! I was right!_ ”  But instead, he remained just as he was, his eyes now softly closed. From the quietness of his breathing, it seemed as if he had already fallen asleep even while sitting up, his neck bent gracelessly, almost bonelessly, as his head rested against the glass.

Not too much of a surprise, that. The lad had barely had the chance to catch his breath, after all, ever since escaping from the old Wolvercote Inn. As soon as he was home from hospital, he had headed off with Jakes, trying to track down the place where he had been held, a day that had cumulated in his confrontation with Dr. Cronyn—who, it proved, was Mason Gull all along, just as Morse had said. And, from there, he’d been carted off to Bellevue, had escaped, and, since then, had been on the run, god-only-knew where.

 

The best thing to do was to get Morse home for a bit.

Thursday stole another glance in the mirror; Morse’s head had fallen forward now, revealing a crown of spiraling waves. The fact that the lad was so clearly out for the count deepened Thursday’s resolve. Division could put a sock in it, as far as he was concerned.

Thursday couldn’t help but remember how wary Morse had been in those early days following the mass shooting at Clive Durrell’s—how he had hovered uncertainly on the threshold of a room, how he had watched them from his chair in the corner of the dining room as if they were all strange beings from another planet.

The fact that Morse now trusted him enough to let his caution drop, to fall asleep almost as soon as he was in the car, was to show a pledge of faith in him that Thursday would be damned if he would see compromised. He didn’t take such matters lightly. It was all that had got him through the war, those bonds of trust he held with his comrades. All that had gotten him home to his Win.

No, Thursday didn’t have the heart to take Morse to hospital. Especially until he was certain that Deare had given up on his campaign against him.

There had to be _someone_ who Morse felt he could rely on.  _Someone_ he could trust.

 

After a half hour or so of silence, Jakes finally turned the Jag onto the Thursdays’ streetlamp-lit and shadowed street, one lined with white and brick row houses with neat curtains all drawn up against the darkness, and with thick and leafy shrubs, stirring gently in the night breeze.

 

Jakes pulled smoothly around the tight corner that led into his drive, and Thursday turned round in his seat.

“Morse. We’re home, lad,” Thursday said.  

Morse stirred, blinking in the light of the lamp that shone by the front stoop, one which Win had doubtlessly left on for them, expecting—as was her quiet and determined way—nothing less than their safe return.

 

Without a word, Morse opened the car door and swung himself out, swaying slightly on his feet as he stood. Once he seemed to find his balance, he headed up to the door, not stopping to wait for either of them.

He paused at the top of the stoop and scowled at the doorknob in puzzlement, as if suddenly uncertain as to whether or not he had the right to open the door and barrel on in.

Thursday shuffled him off to the side so that he could open the door and then moved Morse through before him, feeling at last a sense of relief that they were home, that the crisis was over. He never took it for granted, stepping back into this homey space, with its pale green walls and old hall stand, with its lace curtain at the door and round mirror on the wall, right at the turn of the kitchen—all as familiar to him as the back of his own calloused hand.

 

 Not that he had much of a chance to pause and reflect on the events of night.  Almost as soon as they stepped inside, Sam and Joan were there, trundling out of the den.  

They both stopped short when they saw Morse, baffled—no doubt by his appearance.

Morse was a mess, despite the fine and surprisingly authentic-looking Scottish regalia, which was in and of itself cause enough for comment. The blue face paint that looked to have once been applied with care was now smeared from where Thursday had pressed a cloth to his temple, and a faint stain of blood darkened a section of his wild and reddish hair. His hand was wrapped in a thick bandage, like a mummy’s, clumsily done, as if he had tried to wrap it up himself.

 

“What happened to you?” Joan asked.

Morse said nothing, but rather walked right past her; it was as if he must either keep moving or collapse where he stood.

 

They looked after him in disbelief as he made his way up the stairs.

 

“What’s Morse doing all dressed up like that?” Sam asked.

“What’s he doing all _bloodied_ up like that?” Joan amended. “What’s happened?”

“Long story,” Thursday said.

“You can say that again,” Jakes snorted.  “Well. I’ll be off then.”

“All right, sergeant. Best to get your head down for a while, yeah?”

“Sir,” Jakes replied. “Usual time in the morning?”

“Why not take your time, if you’ve a mind,” Thursday replied. “It’s been a night.”

“Sir,” Jakes said with a nod.

“Good night,” Joan called, after him.

“Night,” Jakes replied, closing the door smartly behind him.

 

Thursday turned and started up the steps. He was fairly certain he knew just where Morse was headed, and, sure enough, when he reached the turn in the upstairs hallway, Win was there standing in the doorway of Morse’s room, her brow furrowed in concern.

“Fred?” she asked. “What’s happened?”

Thursday came ‘round and looked over her shoulder. Morse was there in the darkness, sprawled out on his stomach across his bed, looking as if he had simply collapsed onto the thing as soon as he had made it into his room.

  
“Is everything all right, love?” she asked, uncertainly. “What’s happened to Morse?”

“Long story,” Thursday said again.

“You think he’s all right?”

“Mmmm,” Thursday hummed meditatively. “I think so. I thought I’d put a call in to Dr. DeBryn, see if he might not mind coming by and giving him a look-over.”

 

Morse groaned at that.  

So, the lad was listening to them, at least, even if he wasn’t talking.

 

“What’s that, Morse?” Thursday asked.

 

Morse opened one bleary eye, gas fire blue in the smudged blue paint, and regarded him for a moment.

 

“Don’t bother him,” Morse said. “Please. I’m alright. I just want to be left alone.”

 

Morse turned his head pointedly, then, so that he was facing the wall.

 

Lovely. Now he had succeeded in covering the pillowcase with _both_ sides of his blue face.

 

Well. Frankly, Thursday thought that DeBryn would find it rather less of a bother coming out to the house than he would have had the night gone south, had the doctor been called out to deal with the mess that might have been waiting for him in the courtyard of Bixby’s grand palace of a house.

Although one would suppose that the causes of death would have been easy enough to have ascertained.

 

Thursday considered Morse for a long moment before padding back down the hall and going down the stairs to the telephone in the den. It couldn’t hurt to ask. There was always the possibility, of course, that DeBryn would politely tell him to sod off and to take Morse to hospital.

But Thursday had the feeling that the doctor, in his own tetchy way, understood Morse, that he wouldn’t mind coming out, especially considering that he had most likely almost been expecting a call, seeing as they had all known that _something_ was bound to happen at that party.

It might even come as a relief to the man, in his isolation down at the morgue, to have the chance to be filled in on all that had happened.

To get a call of one sort, rather than to wait for another.

 

***********

 

As soon as Thursday heard the rumble of the Morris pull up into the drive, he went to the front door to meet DeBryn.

 

“Inspector,” DeBryn said, coming into the foyer.

“Doctor,” he replied.

 

He led DeBryn up the stairs and down the long hall. The doctor’s round and smooth face, usually so impassive, registered the briefest startle of surprise as he crossed the threshold of Morse’s room, doubtless at the sight of the lad’s walls, painted with blowing grasses and billowing trees and tumbling vines, looking like nothing so much as a breathing, fantastical garden, there in the low light.  DeBryn, however, was nothing else if not a man who had seen it all, and he recovered himself quickly. If he found it all a bit odd, he didn’t say.

Nor did he remark on the fact that Morse was wearing a kilt, of all things.

 

“Hello, doctor,” Win said, looking up at them.

 She had pulled a chair up to Morse’s bedside and was sitting in a circle of yellow light thrown by the lamp on his nightstand, wiping the blood and paint from Morse’s face with a damp flannel, revealing the blossoms of two bruises that masked his eyes and a cut that ran across the bridge of his nose.

Hers was an experienced hand, Win’s. So gentle were her ministrations, that Morse appeared to be sleeping right through them, snoring softly, his mouth hanging slightly open against the pillows.

“Just thought I’d get him cleaned up a bit,” Win said. “He might just need to go in for a trim for his hair. Not much I can do, getting the paint out.”

Thursday hummed in agreement. They’d have their work cut out for him, that was clear. It had been weeks since the lad had been into the barber’s, and his waves were starting to grow into chaotic spirals, some of which were tipped in blue—either from the face paint or from the blue paint he had gotten into when he had painted his Doomsday of a mural on the walls of a guest room at the old Wolvercote Inn.

 

“Morse?” DeBryn asked, walking into the room, field kit in hand.

 

Morse didn’t stir in the slightest; he only kept on, snoring softly.

 

“Morse,” he said again, this time a bit more forcefully.

Win stood up then, and yielded her chair to the doctor, while the lad groaned unhappily at the sound of the intrusive voice.

Then, he rolled his face up from the pillow and opened his eyes.

He looked at them for a long moment, but said nothing.

 

“Morse? How are you feeling?” the doctor asked.

“’M alright,” he said, after a long pause. “Sorry.”  

“Sorry for what?” DeBryn asked, wryly. “Sorry that you’re alright?” 

“No,” he said. “Sorry because . . . you needn’t have bothered.”

“It’s not a bother, Morse,” DeBryn answered. “It’s my job.”

 

Well, technically it wasn’t. Although, as Thursday had suspected when he had first put in the call, the doctor doubtless found a visit to Morse’s room preferable to a night spent crouching in a stone courtyard amidst the splattered remains of two bodies dropped from seventy feet.

 

“’M alright,” Morse protested. “I think . . . I think I just have a concussion.”

“Well. Let’s see the damage, then, shall we?”

 

DeBryn opened his bag and took out a pen light.

 

“Now, Morse,” he said. “This will be bright, but I’ll need you to hold your head still. Do you understand? Simply close your eyes if it’s too much.”

“Mmmmm,” Morse said.

 

The doctor switched the light on, then, and peered at Morse as he shone the white and narrow beam into one eye and then the other. Morse flinched away at once, but not before it was clear that his pupils had remained dilated, the blue reduced to a foil thinness around the black.

 

“Yes. I’d say you do, too,” the doctor intoned. “Are you feeling dizzy, lightheaded, at all?”  

“I was, at first. But after I laid down, I wasn’t. But now that you shone that light at me, I am again,” Morse said, irritably.   

“I doubt it was the light, Morse. It was the way you jerked your head that did it,” the doctor said. “I did tell you to remain still.”   

“Mmmmmm,” Morse grumbled.

 

“Best to let him sleep it off,” the doctor said, then, turning to him and to Win. “Just wake him every two hours or so, to make sure his condition’s not worsening.”

 

Morse let out a moan of protest at that.

 

“Would you prefer being left here unattended while you quietly slip into a comatose state?” DeBryn asked.

 

Morse said nothing.

 

“Morse?”

 

“I suppose not,” he said, at last, as if it was a tough call.

 

“Mmmm,” DeBryn said.

 

DeBryn turned his attention, then, to Morse’s bandaged hand, and, even though he took it gently enough in his, Morse gasped at his touch, half jumping up, his big eyes flying wide in a look of utter panic.

“Oh, don’t!” he cried, jerking it away.  

“It won’t take a moment, Morse,” DeBryn said.

Morse looked at him mistrustfully, his breathing quick and shallow, his hand hidden under his pillow. But the doctor simply sat there, watching Morse from behind his heavy-framed glasses as if he had all of the time in the world, as if Morse’s protests didn’t faze him in the slightest. Eventually, Morse’s resolve seemed to crumble, and he held his hand back out, surprisingly docile under the doctor’s unwavering gaze.

 

“Who did this?” DeBryn asked, once he was allowed to take Morse’s right hand in his once more and to examine it in the light.  

Morse scowled. “What do you mean?”

“Who bandaged your hand like this?” he clarified.

“I did,” Morse said.

“Mmmmm,” DeBryn said, as if he suspected as much.  

“Don’t,” Morse said, apparently changing his mind again, trying to pull his hand away. “I’ve told you. I already tended to it.”

The doctor, however, retained his firm but careful hold on it and was already beginning to unwrap the old bandages.

“Yes,” he said. “And now I’m going to do it properly.”

Morse looked about the room as if looking for an escape route, as if he would like nothing better than to get up and leave, if only he could summon the energy. Then he seemed to sag against the pillows, as if giving up in earnest.  

“Oh, god,” he said, his voice catching high in his throat. “It’s going to hurt like hell.”

“It might,” DeBryn conceded. “But it will hurt far less in the long run if you get it tended to. You must know that.”

DeBryn set the tattered bandage aside and took up Morse’s hand, holding it under the light of the lamp. Then, with the side of his thumb, he began to trace along and manipulate the fine bones at the back of the narrow hand, taking extra care as his thumb ran near the knuckles, which were bloodied and split.

Morse seemed to pale at that and his shoulders tensed, his left hand twisting in the blanket beside him.

“How did it happen?” DeBryn asked.

It could hardly matter at this point, but Thursday supposed that the doctor thought the question might help to keep Morse distracted.

“I was trying to get out. I pounded on the wall. And I felt it . . . .” he seemed to go a bit green, then, at the memory. “I felt it shatter. I . . . I _heard_ it.”

“And what happened before? How did it come to be in such a state in the first place?” DeBryn asked.  

 

Morse went still.

 

“I don’t know,” he said.

 

DeBryn paused and looked at him, considering. He hadn’t had much interaction with Morse in those early days. The Morse he knew had once feigned tearing his stitches in order to get into the morgue and shamelessly begin pumping him for information. The Morse DeBryn had come to know tended to blurt out whatever it was he was thinking.

It wasn’t like the stroppy Morse the doctor had come to know to be so subdued, so deliberately evasive, his rounded voice going soft, seeming to drop an octave as he spoke.

DeBryn hummed meditatively, and continued tracing the bones of Morse’s hand. He rolled his thumb gently to the right, and Morse whimpered slightly and then froze.

By the time DeBryn looked to him, however, as if to make certain Morse was all right before proceeding, the lad’s expression had turned stoic, as if he was determined to make a good showing through it all, despite the fact that he seemed half loopy.

Finally, the doctor seemed satisfied, and Thursday found some tension in his own shoulders easing in relief, as if he’d been holding his breath in sympathy. It was getting clear that the lad would not be able to hold steady much longer, and Thursday knew Morse would give himself hell, later, if he fell to pieces before them, if he felt he had not handled himself with the decorum befitting a police officer.

DeBryn began to splint the hand, and Morse relaxed further, as if hopeful that the worst must be over.

“That’s rather better than it was, at any rate,” DeBryn said. “I’m splinting it for now, but you really should consider surgery, in the long term.”

“No,” Morse said.

“It would greatly improve your mobility. It _is_ your dominant hand, isn’t it?”

“No,” Morse said. “I mean. It was. But. But there’s nothing wrong with being left-handed. Tony is  . . . I know someone who’s left handed.”

“Of course, there’s nothing _wrong_ with it,” DeBryn said. “If you are indeed left-handed. Trouble is, you aren’t left handed, are you?”

“I am now,” Morse said, simply.  

 

“You needn’t decide anything right now,” Win said.

 

“No,” Morse said. “I mean. Yes. I’ve already decided. It wouldn’t make any difference. It wouldn’t ever be . . . It wouldn’t ever be like it used to be.”

 

“No, it probably wouldn’t,” DeBryn said quietly. “But it would be a great deal better.”

 

But Morse’s eyes were already drifting, losing their focus.

“Things don’t recede in the rearview mirror,” he murmured, laying his head back down on the pillow. “They may blur a bit. Or maybe you don’t look at them for a moment. But they’re there. They’re always there.”  

 

Thursday frowned at that. It seemed somehow that the lad had still been ruminating over of all that, then. And perhaps more than he ought.

 

Dr. DeBryn, not understanding the private reference, looked confused.

“I suppose they are,” he said, at last.  

 

Then, he rose from the chair.   

 

“Well. Rest well, Morse,” he said.

 

Morse, knackered out from the proceedings, didn’t seem to be able to manage an answer.  

“I’d let him sleep it off,” DeBryn said quietly, once he reached Morse’s door. “But, as I said, keep an eye. If it looks as if his condition is deteriorating in any way, take him to hospital.”

“All right. Thank you, doctor,” Thursday said.

“Thank you. I’ll walk you out,” Win said.

 

Win led the doctor back down the stairs, but Thursday remained where he was, near the doorway. Morse was already dead to the world. It seemed he ought to have changed out of that get-up at least. On the nightstand, the gold brooch that had been at his shoulder was laid out by his books, so he had at least taken that off. Or perhaps that had been Win.

He walked over to the foot of Morse’s bed, to where an extra blanket lay folded along the bottom of the mattress, and pulled it out from under Morse’s gangly and sprawling legs. The lad had toed his shoes off, too, at least, leaving them on the scatter rug, so that his feet were clad in only those ridiculous knee-high blue socks with a border of green embroidery at the top.

Thursday managed to get the blanket out from underneath him and to drape it over him, but still, Morse did not bother to stir. Was he simply feigning sleep, in the hopes of being left alone? It seemed odd, that he should blink out that fast on him, what when he had just been talking.

 

“You all right, lad?” he asked, feeling he needed reassurance of the fact.

 

Eh, buggar it. How were they supposed to know if he was ‘deteriorating,’ what with him in such a state? It was all wrong, somehow, seeing the lad, usually so sharp and restless, so dull-eyed and still.

 

“Morse?”

“Mmmmm,” he replied at last, rolling his face from the pillow and blinking his eyes slowly open.

 

“You all right, then?” Thursday repeated.

“Yes,” Morse murmured. “‘M just glad to be home. I just want to sleep.”

 

Thursday, too, must have been tired, must have let some glimmer of the old worry show on his face, because Morse suddenly looked more alert, his brow furrowing in concern. 

“What is it?” he asked.  
 

“It’s nothing,” Thursday said. “I just wasn’t sure if you would want to use this room, is all. If you’d still be comfortable here, considering . . . .”

 

Considering that you were taken right out of the window of it by a lunatic, was what Thursday was preparing to say, but then he found that he didn’t want to say the words out loud.

 

“Oh,” Morse said, softly, as if he understood. “No. It’s fine. Thinking of being back here was one of the things that helped me, actually, when I was there. At that place.”

 

“How so?” Thursday asked.

 

“I knew I had somewhere to go,” Morse replied simply. “It gave me . . . I don’t know. A goal, I suppose.”

 

“Hmmmmm,” Thursday said.

 

Then, Thursday heard footsteps and glanced up to see Joan and Sam, unable to keep their curiosity at bay any longer, venturing down the hall. 

 

“Do you think I could . . . .” Morse began, right as the two came to stand in the doorway.

“Nevermind,” Morse said.

“What is it, Morse? You can say,” Thursday prompted.

“Do you think I . . . That I could have some paint?” he asked.

 

Thursday sighed. He had hoped the lad wouldn’t allow Gull to spoil his painting for him.

 

“Oh, lad. You don’t really want to paint all of this over, do you?”

“No,” Morse said. “I just want to change it a little. I don’t like that he was here. I don’t want him to know. I don’t . . . I don’t want that man to know exactly what it looks like.”

Sam’s ears seemed to perk up at that.  

“Could I give it a go? I mean, could I paint a bit?” he asked. “If you’re going to change some things?”

 

“No,” Morse said.

 

It was a testament to how dazed the lad actually must have been that he would be so firm in his answer—usually, he worked so hard to be agreeable, yielding the last piece of pie to Sam, turning off his records so that Joan could better hear hers.

 

“Cheeky,” Joan said, turning to Sam. “This is Morse’s. If you want to paint, paint your own room.”

“But my room’s got nothing. I don’t know how to start from scratch. I just wanted to try a few leaves or something.”

  

Morse looked slightly uncertain, watching their exchange, as if wondering whether or not he had misstepped.

But Thursday thought it was a good thing that lad was defending his painting, insisting on his own sense of space.

It wasn’t as if he’d had much of a space of his own, in the past, it seemed.  Thursday remembered the deserted bedroom in Lincolnshire, already used to store spare lumber, as if the lad had never been there at all. Even at his father’s house, it seemed, Morse had been a guest in his own home.

 

“Morse pays the rent on the place,” Thursday said. “The room’s his. How you decorate your room is your affair. Maybe Morse will help you, if you want to do something different in there.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Morse said.

“Well I don’t want something as wild as all of _this_ ,” Sam protested.

 

Joan swatted Sam on the shoulder, as if she felt he’d been insensitive, but Morse had turned his head again, already seeming to be fading out.

 

“All right,” Thursday grumbled. “That’s about enough of that, I think. What are you lot all doing up, anyway? It’s time you were in bed.”

“But we wanted to know what was happening,” Sam said.

“You know the rules. Now off to bed with you.”

“Fine,” Joan said. “But it’s getting silly, Dad. We aren’t children. It’s not like we won’t read all about it in the papers tomorrow.”

 

“Night, Morse,” she called.

Morse burrowed his face back into the pillows. 

“Night,” he said, softly.

 

And, in another few moments, he was breathing evenly, as if he had already fallen back to sleep.

***********

 

Bixby sat behind his dark mahogany desk, absent-mindedly rotating a pen in his hands, mulling over Morse’s words.

“That’s the last of the police,” Sylvie said, coming into the room.  “The last of everyone. The place is cleared out.”

“Hmmmmmm,” Bixby said.

 

She pulled off the red wig she had been wearing and shook out her dark hair. Then she stopped short.

 

“What is it?” she asked, shrewdly.

“What’s what?” Bixby asked.

“You look like you’re thinking about something.”

“It happens now and again,” he replied.

“Yes,” Sylvie conceded. “Often with questionable results.”

 

Bixby set the pen down and sat up straighter in his chair. “I take exception to that.”

 

“Well. What is it, then?” Sylvie replied. “Out with it. Let’s hear what you’ve got.”   

 

Bixby tilted his head, considering. “How do you feel about posing as a beauty pageant contestant?”

“Sounds like it could be fun,” Sylvie asked. “Why?”

“We need something with Val Todd’s handwriting. If you can get that, I’ll get something of Deare’s. I’ll . . . . I’ll call him in for a consult at headquarters, have him sign some such thing.”

“So it’s agreed,” Sylvie said. “We’re going along with Morse’s plan, after all, then?

Bixby shrugged. “Inelegant as it is, I thought it might work. Besides, if it does, we can give credit where credit is due, and that might be of help to us in future.”

“How is that?” Sylvie asked.

“Morse makes for a much more useful pair of eyes to have on the ground than Deare has proven to be.  It’s in our interest he remains on the force, isn’t it? And if this works, I think I know just the boost we could give him in his career, something to guarantee he’s not sacked over any of this.”  

“Mmmmm,” Sylvie said. “Deare hasn’t shown himself to be the most reliable of liaisons, that much is certain. And, just think, if Morse remains on the force, you might run into him again some time.”

“Well. That’s neither here nor there,” Bixby said.

“Isn’t it?” Sylvie asked. “Then how have you happened to end up with blue paint all over your face?”

Bixby sat up abruptly, and wiped his mouth with his hand. But, when he checked his fingers, there was no trace of paint there.

 

“Had you going, didn’t I?” Sylvie said.

“Ha, ha my dear,” Bixby said.

*********

 

Louis and Singleton pulled up the road leading to the old white clapboard holiday park and trundled around to the back, hiding their car in the shadows of the hedgerows. Then they got out and directed the driver of a second car, carrying four of their men, to park alongside of them.

“I do hope this is worth it,” Singleton said. “I say, Blyton’s message sounded quite fanciful. These men are pillars of Oxford Society, after all.”

“One can be a gentleman and a traitor, too,” Louis replied. “History has shown us that, time and time again.”

“True enough, old boy.”

“And you can’t say it all doesn’t fit together.”

“It certainly does.” 

 

The four doors of the second car flew open in unison, and four men got out and straightened, heading off in close formation toward a stand of trees and holly shrubs along the southeast corner of the building, to lie in wait for their signal, while Louis and Singleton walked along the gravel path that meandered around to the front of the place, to where a long patio set with columns ran before a series of white doors. Singleton took out a skeleton key and opened the first door they came to, and he and Louis went inside.

“What would have brought them to this place?” Louis asked, examining a yellowing lampshade fringed with gaudy tassels, his face screwed up with distaste.

“Blyton said Val Todd knew the place from his days as an Entertainments Officer,” Singleton replied.

“A bit tawdry, isn’t it? Funny old place. What do you make of this lamp? It’s quite a fright.”

“Hmmmmmm,” Singleton replied.

 

They searched the room, but found nothing extraordinary; it all seemed quite abandoned.

 

The fourth room they searched, however, proved to be a different story when Louis pulled back a small, cheap, knock-off Persian rug, revealing a stain of darkening blood poured out across the scarred oak floor.

“What do you make of this?” Louis asked.

 

In the middle of the stain, pressed into the pool of blood, was the stub of a cigar. A Romeo y Julieta.

 

“The brand the Chief gives out,” Louis said.

“Well. I’ll be damned,” Singleton said. “Deare.”

“Takes some gall, doesn’t it? He might have come straight from the Chief, then, right from headquarters. And then he smoked one of our own cigars right here, right as he killed the girl, right as he was betraying us all. Looks like the flashy bastard was on to something, then.”

“Even a gilded clock is right twice a day, old boy,” Singleton said.

“I suppose,” Louis conceded. “And even an American one. Will wonders never cease?”

 

Then they both laughed.

 

“It has been strange, I must say, that the leak seemed to occur right as Deare was taken on,” Singleton said.  

“You might have thought he would wait a few months, at the least,” Louis agreed. “But then, I never thought Deare a man of great subtlety.”

“No. Not our sort at all.”

 

Just then, the headlights of two cars swept across the room’s large front window.  

“Proof is in the pudding, Louis. Best we get out of sight, yes?” Singleton said.

“Indeed,” Louis replied.

 

They went to stand in a dark and shadowed corner behind the front door. In a moment, the white door swung open, revealing a tongue of light from the moonlit night outside.

 

“Well? What’s so important, you wanted to see me?” Todd asked.  

“What?” Deare replied. “You’re the one who called this one.”

“No. ‘ _We must meet up. 0400. You know where. Don’t call me.’”_

“That’s the message you sent me,” Deare protested.

 

Singleton stepped out of the darkness, then, and snapped on another of those frightful, tasseled lamps.

“Actually, it’s the same message that I sent both of you,” he said. One signed with an C one signed with a V.”

 

“What?” Deare cried. “What is this?”

 

“This, dear assistant chief constable, is treason and conspiracy to murder,” Louis replied, stepping out alongside Singleton, into the light. 

“You’ve been selling the very state secrets you’ve been sworn to protect, old boy. Rather bad form, after we’ve shown such faith,” Singleton said.

 

“This . . . . This is madness,” Val Todd protested.

“That’s what we thought,” Singleton said.

“But not long after Deare here was asked to be our liaison in Oxford, we detected a leak,” Louis said. “Not very clever of you,” he said.

“But it was all too tempting, I suppose,” Singleton added.  

“But, once the deed was done, how to hide the payoff?” Louis asked.  

“You needed a way to launder the funds,” Singleton said.

“And who better to help than your Brother Mason, purveyor of beauty pageants and car shows extraordinaire, co-owner and assistant manager of the perfect business in which to hide all of your ill-gotten gains—our very own Val Todd.”

 

“You misunderstand the nature of our fellowship,” Todd protested.  

 

“But not the nature of business,” Louis replied.

“And you might have gotten away with it too.”

“But murder will out.”  

 

“Murder?” Deare cried. “Now, see here. I’m the assistant chief . . .”

 

“Yes,” Louis said, cutting across him. “Murder. Two murders, actually. The first, being Frida Yelland.”

 

“Frida?” Todd protested. “That little chit from the Henley heat? I’ve naught to do with her.”

 

“Oh, yes,” Louis said. “We’ve been running a little investigation of our own, over at the bread factory. Quite the firebrand, Frida, it seems.”

“The type who might have wanted to help you in your cause.” 

“But you didn’t want help of that sort. Because you aren’t even a proper communist, are you? No. Just a base little schemer. You couldn’t have Frida Yelland out recruiting, brining attention to your filthy little deals. So you needed to get her out of the way, to silence her."

“She came here with you thinking you were going to discuss plans to promote the Party in Oxford. She thought she was finally finding a way to be a part of the grand revolution,” Singleton said.

“Instead,” Louis added, “she was walking to her death.”

“And then there was Pettifer,” Singleton said.

 

 _“Pettifer?_ ” Todd sputtered. “You’re raving. I don’t even know any Pettifer.”

 

“Oh, I think that you do. There’s a cheque to him, with your wife’s signature on it. She thought you were having an affair, so she hired Pettifer to keep tabs on you.”

“And he followed you a Frida here.”

“Pettifer saw the you go in. Took just enough photographs to make you think he had more he was keeping back.”

“So he had to go, too.”

 

“You can’t prove any of that” Todd said.

 

“Oh, I’ll expect that we can,” Louis replied.

“Because it all spiraled from there, didn’t it, old boy?” Singleton asked.  

 

“What do you mean?” Todd asked.

 

“What I mean is this,” Singleton said. “You had your heads together, figuring out how to clean up your wretched, dastardly mess, when who should happen by the studios but two of Oxford’s finest?”

“Two of our boys in blue,” Louis chimed in.  

“You didn’t expect that.”

“And then it was Pettifer all over again. You didn’t know what they knew or didn’t know.”

“You just kept getting deeper and deeper,” Singleton said, sadly shaking his head. “But you couldn’t kill two standing police officers.”

 "Goodness, no,” Louis laughed. “You’d be racking up as high of a death toll as the Pre-Raphaelite killer.”

“So, you used Constable Morse’s rather regrettable bad temper against him.”  

“Painted him as an absolute loony.”

“A rather low blow, I’d say.”

“Indeed.”

“And then you thought Constable Fancy might be tempted to go along with the whole charade in exchange for membership in your little club.”

“But not everyone is willing to sell out home and country to the Reds for a down payment on the new Klipspringer Continental.”

 

“You're raving,” Todd sputtered.  “This is  . . . .”

“Shut up!” Deare snapped, at once. “They’d have nicked us if they had any proof.”

 

“Proof?” Singleton asked. “Beyond the fact that you came here this morning? Our message made no mention of a rendezvous beyond, ‘You know where.’”

“And yet here you are.”

 

“Decent brief will rip that to shreds,” Deare said.

 

“But he’ll have a harder time with your cigar,” Singleton said, gesturing to the floor below.

“You didn’t think we’d come here looking for a scene of a crime,” Louis said.

“And, what’s more, Frida and Pettifer left notes behind them, giving us an idea as to just where they were going. All of the clues seem to fit together, strangely enough,” Singleton said.

“And they lead straight to you,” Louis concluded.  

 

Louis went over to the door and opened it, nodding pointedly to the men who were out on the lawns, waiting in the shadows to help bring the traitors in.

 

The pair protested vehemently as they were taken away, made all sorts of ugly threats. All very unsporting of them, really. No class or composure whatsoever. But, then, they really weren't Louis or Singleton's sort. 

 

“Well, what do you say?” Singleton asked, once the uncouth blackguards were hauled away, towards the cars. “This rather makes up for those, eggs, don’t you agree?”

Louis snorted. “Speak for yourself. I couldn’t smell anything but for a week.”

“Really, Louis. I’m sure it was an accident that Constable Morse happened to leave them there on the back seat. Most likely he'd been doing a spot of shopping for the Inspector’s lady wife.”

“Hmmmmmm,” Louis said.

*****

Morse opened his eyes to find the morning sun streaming through the window, setting the vines and trees on his walls stirring with color and life.

He stretched and sunk further into the pillows. He could hear them all downstairs, the Thursdays, chatting at breakfast, but he remained where he was, listening for a knock at the front door.

He didn’t want to go downstairs quite yet; he didn’t want for Sergeant Jakes to come into the dining room and see him as he was, his hair unkempt, his face bruised, sitting at the table on a workday, dawdling over his toast like a child too young for school, while Mrs. Thursday fussed over him and brought him tea.

 

Funny how just two days ago he had torn through the woods, hastening toward a rendezvous with a serial killer, but now he feared facing his own sergeant.

 

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, sighing deeper into the mattress. Soon, there was a gentle knock on his half-open bedroom door.

 

“Morse?” Inspector Thursday promoted.

“Sir?” Morse replied.

 

He propped himself up on his elbows as the door opened the rest of the way, revealing Thursday, dressed in a dark gray suit, hat in hand.

 

“Just came to check in before the off. Feeling better?” he asked.

“Yes,” Morse said. “But . . . but I don’t know if I can make it in today.”

Thursday snorted. “I should say not. You’re to take it easy the next few days. Understood?”

“Yes,” Morse said.

“Do you?”

“Yes,” Morse said.

 

Just then, he heard a flurry of voices: Joan, at the door, greeting Sergeant Jakes.

“Well. That’s Jakes. I’m off, then. See you tonight.”

“Sir,” Morse said.

 

 

He waited until he was sure that they had left, and then he went down the hall to the bathroom. He managed to extricate himself from his regalia with his one good hand, despite all of the the hooks and the elaboration of brass buttons.

As he peeled off the white shirt, he winced at a memory from the night before, of how he had stood before the large, oval mirror in Bixby’s suite, appraising himself in his costume: how laughable, how ludicrous he had been, thinking for a moment that the heavy fly plaid pinned at his shoulder had somehow given him a greater air of substantiality, that the bright paint had made him to look like a figure to be reckoned with. When all along, he had been setting himself up to be quite the opposite, a mere pawn in yet another madman’s schemes.

He bundled the mess of tartan and white onto the edge of the sink and stepped into the shower. It was a relief, standing under the hot water, getting the last remnants of the waxy paint off his face, even though it was awkward, keeping his right hand out of the spray.

Once he was done, he stood before the mirror over the sink, toweling off his hair, considering his reflection. He looked exactly like he felt—a complete disaster, pale beneath the purple contusions that spread across his face, making him to look as if he was wearing a robber’s mask, his damp hair standing on end as if he'd recently received an electric shock.

 

He finished dressing and wandered tentatively down the stairs, feeling apprehensive. He had no idea as to what he might do with himself for the next few days.

 

Gwen had always hated it when he stayed home when he was ill—so much so that Morse usually found it preferable to simply muddle through and to go to school. It was far better to suffer in the corner of a classroom than to suffer Gwen’s pointed looks and sighs for a day, as if his very existence was cause for displeasure.

Mrs. Thursday was always so kind, but still, Morse knew that having him about the place couldn’t help but interfere with her schedule.

The very last thing he wanted to do was to make more work for her than he already was. No doubt she was already assembling a list of things for him to do, small tasks to keep him from overexerting himself.

Morse resolved that he would spare her the trouble. He would simply read a book on the couch in the den and keep quiet. Just read a book and try to stay out of the way.

 

He decided even to announce his intention, to put her mind at rest.

“Hello, Mrs. Thursday,” Morse said, once he came downstairs.

“Good morning, love,” she replied. “How are you feeling? Would you like some breakfast, dear?”

 

The thought of breakfast made him feel slightly nauseous, almost as much as the thought that she might feel she needed to wait on him all of the day. 

"No, thank you, Mrs. Thursday," he said. "I'm not very hungry, actually. I thought maybe I’d just read in the den.”

“Well. That sounds like a fine idea,” she said.

 

He had made it halfway to the sofa, when she added, "I'll just bring you a cuppa in there, then, and some toast to nibble when you're feeling up to it." 

 

And Morse felt a pang of anxiety at that. It would have been easier for her, after all, if he had just come down to breakfast with everyone else.

 

Morse sighed and collapsed down onto the low, white sofa and leaned against the arm to prop up his book. He tried to read, but he couldn’t quite seem to focus properly— his vision felt blurred at the edges, and he found he kept reading the same paragraph over and over.

He closed his eyes for a moment to rest them, but as he did, his thoughts seemed to recede, like the pull of the tide, and, despite the homey coziness of the sunbright room, his mind couldn't help but circle over the events of the night before—of running up the narrow service stairs, of Gull’s manic voice, of looking down at a mosaic of dark stones and pale, upturned faces, of how his heart had felt, like a bird, thrashing to escape the cage of his chest.

 

“Are you sure you’re feeling better?” Mrs. Thursday asked, as she came into the room with a white cup and two slices of toast, all balanced together on a white plate. “You seem awfully blue.”

 

Morse startled at that.

Was that meant to be a veiled remark about his black and blue face?

 

Morse searched her face suspiciously. But no. Of course, Mrs. Thursday didn’t mean it like that. That wasn’t her way.

 

“It’s just,” Morse said, “I suppose I made rather a hash of things.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said. She sat the plate down on the coffee table and then turned to sit on the edge of Thursday’s arm chair. “Your instincts were right. You saw the truth of the case, sounds like.”

“Yes,” Morse conceded. “But it all ended in disaster, nevertheless.”

He hesitated for a moment and added, “I’ll never be like . . .  Well . . . I’ll never be like Inspector Thursday.”

“No,” she said. “Probably not.”

 

Morse looked up, surprised.  He had expected her to protest, to say, ‘of course you will be.’ She was always the one who seemed to be cheering him on. He hadn’t expected such a direct salvo of negativity.

 

“But need you be?” she asked. “It seems to me you have your own strengths. Perhaps, you’d do better by not trying to be Inspector Thursday. Perhaps you’d do better by being Inspector Morse.”

 

He blinked in surprise at that. It was the name he had dreamt of months ago, on his first day into the nick, when Jakes had allowed him to drive the black Jag, when he had looked into the rearview mirror and imagined his future self, a man with sharp blue eyes and elegant silver hair. A man who had put the white room and the skeletal sevens that lurked there far, far behind him.

 

Morse smiled, hesitantly. “You’re just making fun. You can’t possibly believe that, after I ended up nearly thrown off the roof by a madman.”

Mrs. Thursday paled at that, and Morse, too late, realized that she didn’t know all of the details of the previous night. Nevertheless, she composed herself quickly. She was a far steelier person than one might realize at first glance, despite her husband’s attempts to keep her sheltered in a world behind the hall stand.

“Well,” she said diplomatically. “You might have handled it differently. You might have waited for Fred. He believed you, you know. You might have worked together instead of trying to handle it all yourself.”

 

Morse paused. It seemed as if it was the same thing that Tony had said, as Morse had stood on the stairs at the party.

But, no, it wasn’t that simple.  

 

Morse sighed. “No. Something like that never would have happened to Inspector Thursday.”

“I don’t know about that. He had quite a few scrapes, when we were younger. But then, he had a different experience than you.”

 

And of course he did. Because scarcely anyone had had the experience he’d had, had they?

 

“Who didn’t?” Morse sighed.

 

Mrs. Thursday smiled, a little sadly. “I didn’t mean that, love. I was talking about the war. I suppose he had to learn to trust his fellows, is what I meant." 

“Why do you think there’s a group of you at the station?” she added. “If one person had the ability to do it all, if they didn’t ever need to rely on someone else, to pool their talents, we could have only one detective per station, couldn’t we? Save a lot of money in the city budget."

 

“Mmmmmmmmm,” Morse said. It was easier to agree, but....

 

But of course, he had to do it all.

 

How else could he ever hope to prove that he was worth anything? How else would anyone see it?

He had tried and tried with his father and Gwen, and they had never seen it. He had tried and tried to assemble the numbers, and he was never good enough, he was never fast enough and haven’t you worked it out Morse and it’s an impossible equation and then well find a way to make it work, Private. And it was never good enough, and he was never good enough.

 

He looked up to find that Mrs. Thursday was watching him, closely. And he couldn’t even help her to close up the garden, he couldn't even rake the last of the brown and faded gold autumn leaves with his hand splinted up as it was. He wished Dr. DeBryn had just left him alone.

 

Mrs. Thursday smiled and said, "Well. Drink your tea, there's a love. I'll be in the kitchen, if you're wanting anything.” And then she rose, leaving him with his book.

He sat back and began again to try to read, but it was no use. Something inside him felt off-kilter, unresolved. It didn't have anything to do with the case, it was something else, something that he couldn't quite place.  

 

At the corners of his mind, Morse heard voices from the hall and came to realize that Mrs. Thursday was talking to someone at the door, in low murmurs.

Had something happened at the station?

He strained to listen, but it wasn't Thursday or Jakes to whom she was speaking, but someone with a posh and plummy sort of accent and . . .

 

And Morse felt himself freeze into place. 

And then Tony was there, in the doorway of the den.

 

It always seemed odd, having Tony here at the Thursday's, seeing him in this small domestic sphere. He seemed out of place, somehow, with his elegantly tailored suit, dapper square in his pocket, and quick, decisive movements—all Lake Silence gentility condensed into a room of with snug low ceilings, lace curtains at the window, ceramic swans on the coffee table, and television stand pushed into the corner.

 

Morse blinked in confusion at the collision of his worlds. So many worlds he had discovered and rediscovered after years and years of nothing but white walls and numbers for company.

 

Too bad, really, that he didn’t quite seem to fit into any of them.

 

It was almost as much of a shock, seeing him here amongst Mrs. Thursday's matching three-piece suite, than seeing him at all, really.

Why had he come? It didn’t make any sense, considering the manner in which they had parted.

 

“What are you doing here?” Morse asked.

 

Tony huffed a laugh, no doubt at the gracelessness of his welcome.

“I thought you might like to go for a drive. Take you out of yourself for a while.”

 

Morse hesitated. He couldn’t imagine what object Tony had in mind.

 

Well.

 

That had to be it.

 

It would be difficult, saying goodbye. He was tired, he still felt half-dazed, and worse, he felt defeated.

But after all he had put Tony through, it did seem to him that he owed him that much, at the least. That he owed him the chance to have the last word.

Slowly, Morse put his book down on the table before him.

“All right,” he said.

 

******

 

Morse didn’t ask where they were going. There was no need. There was only one place to end things between them, and that was where they had begun, so many years ago. And, sure enough, Morse wasn’t surprised when Tony drove out of the city and then took a familiar turn, heading out into the woods that circled Lake Silence.

Morse closed his eyes, inhaling the scent of the wind and of evergreen. He might as well savor these last moments of . . . of whatever it was. When he was old and alone, in a bedsit with his records and his crosswords and his Scotch, he would have these few memories of Tony to set beside those of Susan—painful, but bittersweet. A reminder that he had not always been alone. That he, too, had had someone.

Almost.

If only for an hour.

 

It wasn’t as if he held any hope that he might find anyone else in the future. How could he? It was a logical impossibility, a puzzle without a solution.

 

When, exactly, was the proper time to tell someone a secret like his?

 

It would be bound to scare anyone off at the beginning of a relationship, but, if he waited until a true bond was established to tell the truth of his past, the enormity of such a lie of omission would most certainly break it.

 

No. It had taken all that he had telling Tony. He had chosen Tony to confide in, and he’d never manage it again. Never with anyone else.

 

Tony took another turn, and then they were following the circumference of the dark lake, following the ebb and flow of the back road that wove through the densest part of the forest, leading straight to the old lake house.

 

And why not?

How apropos, really. 

 

Why not end their friendship there, on a day in late autumn, right where it had begun, during a golden summer long ago, in days when Morse had messed about with the old row boat, skipped stones, and swung out over the dark water on a long rope tied to a tree, dropping into its icy depths, all without the slightest inkling of what lay before him. Where Morse had once sat with Tony and the others around the fire, not knowing that one day he would stand over it, consigning a stack of papers outlining plans for world domination to its flames, plans penned by his own hand.

By his own left hand.

 

It would be difficult, getting on without Tony.  He’d been an anchor for so long, Morse could scarcely remember a time when he hadn’t been there, somewhere in a corner of his mind. It was Tony who Morse had thought to call in those early days when he had lived at that man’s, if only he could find a chance to access a telephone. Tony, who was always calm and reasonable and unflappable, in that stiff and sporting uppercrust way he’d been bred to, Tony to whose sound judgment Morse wished that he could make an appeal.

 

“I can’t tell you where I am. But I . . . I never get leave on this assignment. It’s all very high-security, you see, but . . .  Not ever.

Does that .... sound right to you?"

 

And, in those later years, it was Tony who he was sure would still recognize his voice, even if he couldn’t manage any words, even if all he could do was scream.

 

Tony pulled up to the edge of the lake, shut off the engine, and then simply sat there behind the wheel, making no move to get out of the car.

Morse didn’t know what to say, what to do. If Tony was going to give him a telling off, he wished he’d get started. The waiting was worse than anything.

 

“You were never going to call me, were you?” Tony asked, at last.

 

Morse looked down and tugged absentmindedly on his ear.

He said nothing. But his silence was as good as a confession.

 

“Why is that?” Tony asked.

 

And that should be obvious, shouldn’t it? Tony had been so angry when last they spoke. And Morse had disregarded him utterly; Morse had had room only for one thing in the circles of his mind, and that was following the thread of the case to its ruthless conclusion.

And he had ended up nearly being killed in the process, with Tony right there, in a front row seat for his final denouement.

 

Why shouldn’t the man wash his hands of him?

 

But Morse didn’t know how to say all of this, how to put into words what was so clearly plain and true.

So he merely shrugged.

 

“Christ,” Tony said. “What an ass you are. All of these years we’ve been friends and that’s that, then? Is that it?”  

 

Morse blinked, keeping his eyes trained on the glove box.

“I figured you’d be done with me,” he said, slowly. “I mean, everything you told me was true. You were right to be angry.”

 

Tony snorted. “Yes, I was angry. I was  _furious_. But people can be angry and not have it be the end of all things, Pagan.”

 

And what was Tony on about? Of course, when people reached the point when they were as angry as Tony had been, it was the end of all things.

 

It didn’t take even  _that_ much, really.

 

His father had given him to understand from the very first, before he had even spent a full day in the man's house, that Morse wasn’t quite up to snuff, that there would never be anything between them.

And Gwen. She had made it abundantly clear from day one he’d be fighting a losing battle trying to worm his way into her good graces.

 

But he had tried, nonetheless. There had to be  _some_ way he could keep from irritating them so.

He tried keeping out of the way. He tried learning to fix the cab, saving his father on expensive repairs.

He even tried to improve his shooting skills, even though he hated it, even though he had hated killing rabbits, hated that sick twist in his gut he felt as one of the innocent creatures ventured so near to him, so full of trust, right before he put a bullet in its eye. And he came to hate himself in the process, for committing acts he abhorred merely to win the approval of someone who didn’t care anyway. And who never would.

Because he must have done _something_ wrong.  Something.

Even if he didn’t quite know what.

 

Tony was looking at him as if he knew just what he was thinking. And Morse didn’t like that, he didn’t want anyone looking beyond what he chose to show; it was intrusive, really, annoying as hell. He turned away and looked out over the trees.

 

“Although I suppose you don’t believe that,” Tony concluded.

 

And no, he didn’t. Of course, he didn’t.

Although, from his tone, it seemed as if Tony thought that Morse was wrong in this.

 

Morse kept his gaze on the breadth of the lake, watching its waters as they moved under a weak and clouded and falling sun, remembering all of the times that had gone before, all of those summer sunlit days. It was simpler then, easier. Perhaps they had simply taken a wrong turn, perhaps they had made everything too complicated.

It was, his, Morse’s fault. He should have left things as they were. He felt rather as if he had opened a locked box that Tony had long since given up on, one that he had happily concluded would remain forever closed.

And then he had slammed Tony’s hands in it. 

 

Morse cradled his own bandaged hand protectively at the thought of it. And it wasn’t fair, he didn’t know what he was doing, he didn’t know what he wanted.

But no. He did.

 

“Are we still . . . are we are still friends, at least?” Morse managed, at last.

“I think we’ve been friends for so long we always will be,” Tony replied.  

 

Morse winced. This, he felt, sounded worse than simply cutting all strings, shaking hands and saying goodbye. Tony made it to sound as if remaining his friend was some sort of painful and unpleasant duty.

 

Which perhaps it was. Which perhaps it always had been.

 

Morse took a deep breath.

 

“I’m sorry. I just. I couldn’t think of any other way to handle it at the time. It was just the case.”

“Yes, yes,” Tony said, lighting a cigarette with a flash of a silver lighter and taking a meditative drag, exhaling the white-blue smoke in a steady stream. “The case. The case. Everything was just about the case.”

 

Tony said this as if it was a bad thing. But Morse was a police constable now. It was his  _duty_ to follow the thread of a case, without fear or favor, wherever it might lead him.

Tony didn't understand. Would never understand. And if Tony didn't understand him, whoever would? 

Morse turned away in his seat, hiding his face, hiding the telltale sting he felt in his eyes, hiding the hollowness that felt as if it was gathering strength, forming a lump in his throat, a hollowness that was palpable. Suddenly, he felt too raw, too exposed, sitting here with top down, before the broad emptiness of the black lake. 

 

“Pagan,” Tony began.

 

And that was it. Tony didn’t see him as a police officer, as PC Morse. He saw him only as Pagan. The old Pagan he knew.

A twenty-year-old Greats scholar from Lincolnshire, a man who had vanished long ago.

He couldn’t be PC Morse and Pagan, too.

 

But then, there was Inspector Thursday. He was a detective inspector and a husband and a father. And how did he manage to be three things at once? What was it that Thursday had said? That, when he knew he would be late, working on a case, he called Mrs. Thursday, so that he didn’t worry her? That he phoned in to the nick, to tell someone on duty where he was going, before ricocheting off?

It was a balancing game, he supposed. He supposed that was the point of the hall stand. “It’s for us, not for them,” Thursday had said, after the death of Alice Heverstone.

It was to create a space where he could be a different person, to be Fred, to be Dad, not just the guv’nor.

 

But Morse— Morse wasn’t quite sure if he knew how to be  _one_ person, after all that had happened, let alone two or three. For years he was nothing but a shadow, nothing but an automaton.

 

“I suppose . . . I suppose . . . I don’t know how to be so many things at once,” Morse said.  

He frowned then, considering.

 

“Just five months ago, I was nothing,” he added.

 

“Don’t say that,” Tony said.  

 

“Why not? It’s true,” Morse said.

 

He wasn’t saying such things to be maudlin. He had lived alone with the numbers until the numbers was all that he had. And he talked to himself until he feared he was going . . . .

. . . . and then he had stopped talking all together. And his mind was a blank, unable to process anything but the equations before him on the white wall. And he must solve them one after the other, because if he stopped to think of the reality of his situation, he . . .

 

Morse shook his head as if to shake the thought away.

 

Tony sighed and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.

“That’s rubbish,” he said. “You were never _nothing_ , Pagan.”

 

“I was,” Morse said.

 

“No. You may have felt that you were," Tony said. "You may have been treated as if you were. But you weren’t. Not ever. There’s a difference."

“Is there?” Morse asked.

 

If there were, Morse couldn’t see it.

 

Morse took a deep breath, tired again. “I didn’t mean to leave so abruptly, at the party. But I saw someone I had to speak to . . . It was for the case.”

“Yes, so you’ve said. The case.”  

 

And Tony was still angry about that, even though he had tried to explain that he was a police officer now, and . . .

 

“I don’t know what you want me to be,” Morse cried, at last.

“I don’t want you to be anything,” Tony said. “Nothing other than yourself.”

 

And who was that? Morse had just been beginning to figure that out, when everything seemed to implode. He was a Greats student. He was Susan Fallon’s fiancé. And then he was nothing. And then he was an Army recruit, on his way to basic training. And then he was less than nothing. A shadow and an automaton and . . .

And how could he be anyone at all, let alone anyone to Tony, if he didn’t even have himself? How could he give him anything when there was nothing there to give and . . .

 

“I don’t . . .” Morse began.

 

And then he stopped short. Was he incapable even of this simplest of declarations?

 

“You don’t what?” Tony prompted.

 

“I don’t . . .," Morse began again.  "I don’t want you to call me Pagan anymore.”

 

Tony huffed a laugh. “Well, then, what am I supposed to call you? You can’t tell me you’re going to start going by Endeavour after all of this time?”

“No,” Morse said, at once.

"Then what, then?" 

“You can call me Morse."

 

Tony raised his eyebrows.  _“Morse?”_ he asked.

 

“What’s wrong with that?” Morse asked. 

“I don't know," Tony said. "Awfully frosty, isn’t it?” 

“Not really. It’s my name, after all. The Thursdays call me Morse.”

 

Tony seemed to consider this for a moment.

 

“All right,” he said. He paused, then, as if preparing to test out the syllable. “Morse.” 

 

They sat there for a moment in silence. The most awkward one ever to fall between them. Morse remembered the night after his concert on his birthday, when Tony had kissed him in the Thursday’s drive, how simple it had seemed, how strangely right, how easily Tony had moved across the gear shift, until he was half draped across it, pushing Morse back into the passenger seat.

Suddenly, he found himself wishing that Tony would kiss him as he had then, as if that might break the odd spell. 

He felt a flush warming his face as he thought of it, and, to hide his embarrassment, he turned away and tugged once more at his ear. And, as he did, he caught sight of himself in the car’s side mirror, of the bruises he had momentarily forgotten were there, framing his face. There seemed to be something wrong with his eyes, too, the blue of them not so much their normal, bright sky blue, but rather the dull blue glaze of porcelain.

 

Did Tony not kiss him because he no longer wanted to, or because he thought Morse just wasn’t up for much?

 

Morse turned round in his seat and considered him. Tony looked back, a slight crease in his brow. It was as if they had come side by side to a door, and paused, each waiting for the other to go through first. 

 

And then it came to him. It would be up to him to decide what would happen next. And so Morse leaned forward, and let his eyes fall gently closed. It would be just like at the party: he didn’t know if his mouth would press against Tony’s, or against the edge of his jaw as he turned away.

But as he leaned in, his mouth met Tony’s in a kiss. It was a gentle thing, as gentle as the rain had been the last time they had been here at the lake. And they remained like that for a long while, each sitting in his own seat, exchanging kisses soft and slow, until the kisses did, in fact, seem just like a pattering of rain.

 

And then they pulled away.

Because it _was_ raining. 

 

“Oh, dash it all,” Tony said, punching the button to put up the top. “I just had the seats redone.”

And it was so like Tony, the matter-of-fact switch from kisses to fussing over his ridiculous boat of an Egyptian blue automobile, that Morse couldn't help but quirk a wry smile. 

 

“Well,” Tony said. “I suppose I should run you home. Morse.”

 

And in that syllable, Morse began to think it was true, what Tony had said.

Perhaps it wasn’t the end of all things.

Perhaps, finally, after all this time, it was truly the beginning.

****

Thursday was relieved that Morse seemed content to stay at home the first few days after the incident at Bixby’s. He still seemed to be in a bit of a fog, still seemed to be a bit worn thin. Not to mention that it was best that the lad keep his head down until Thursday could better assess the situation, until he could see if Deare or anyone else at Division might approach him, take him to task for having brought Morse home.

But, as he had hoped, Gull’s dramatic arrest seemed to have eclipsed all of that. The man had raved all the night that he was held in the nick, carrying on about what a lot of bastards coppers were, about how not one of them had any brains, about how he had fooled them all before and would fool them again, endearing himself to no one. By the time the orderlies from Bellevue came down in the morning to take him into custody, the constables on duty felt that Morse was a right hero for having had a go at the man, for having attempted the very thing they found themselves wishing they could do—to choke the wretched man into silence.

It might have been, too, simple embarrassment that kept the big wheels at Division quiet. It seemed the lad had a friend in Miss Frazil, the editor of the Oxford Mail, as she made it a point to include a reference to Morse right on the front page.

_Pre-Raphaelite killer apprehended, Constable vindicated._

At the end of the day, no one said a thing.

On the third morning after the incident, however, when Thursday came down to breakfast, Morse was there at the table, freshly scrubbed and shaved and dressed in his dark blue uniform, as if he thought he was going into the station.

 

Well. The lad was just going to have to sit tight for a few more days, that was all.

Sam cast Thursday a look as he sat down, as if he knew what was coming and didn’t envy him in the slightest.

Thursday pointedly buried his face in the paper, delaying the inevitable confrontation that was bound to blow up once Jakes came to the door and . . .

_Christ._

 

“ACC Deare has been arrested?” Thursday cried. 

 

“Mmmmmmm,” Morse said.

 

Thursday snapped the paper down and looked at Morse. Somehow, he didn’t seem as surprised as he should have been.

Thursday eyed him suspiciously, but the lad simply looked back at him, big eyes all innocence, square stubborn jaw working on a piece of toast.

 

Thursday returned his attention to the paper.

 

“Along with that emcee bloke. Val Todd,” he said.

“Mmmmmmmm,” Morse said. 

Thursday frowned.

So, they were back on this were they? The lad had plenty to say once you got him going. But this morning, all he could seem to manage was the thirteenth letter of the alphabet.

 

Thursday continued the article. So. What was it, then? What had Deare gotten up to? Bribery? A shakedown?

 

“Crimes against the realm? _What the hell_?” Thursday shouted. 

“Mmmmmmmm,” Morse said.

Thursday snorted.

 

 

“Seems Deare is being investigated on a slew of other charges, too,” Thursday added. “They’re looking into the affairs of an alderman. And a doctor. And that developer, Landsman. Something to do with an boys’ home operated back in the late 40s, early 50s. What a right mess.”

“Mmmmmmmm,” Morse said.

 

This time, Morse’s voice rose a bit on the hum, as if this, finally, was news that was unexpected. 

 

So whatever shoe the lad had let drop, someone else out there must still be running with it.

 

Thursday continued scanning the article. And then . . . the name seemed to leap out at him, right off the page.

 

“For special services in defense of the realm, Her Majesty the Queen has graciously approved the award of the George Medal to Police Constable Endeavour Morse.”

 

This, finally, prompted more than just a single consonant out of the lad.

 

 _“Endeavour?”_ Morse cried.

 

“Wow,” Sam said, leaning in to look over Thursday’s shoulder.

Morse snatched the paper away before Sam had the chance to look and began searching for the forbidden word, looking horrified.

 _“Endeavour?”_ he wailed.

“That’s your name, isn’t it?” Fred asked.

 

But Morse ignored him. “If he _had_ to do such a thing, he might have just made it out to _E._ Morse,” Morse said.

“If who had to do such a thing?” Thursday asked at once.

 

Morse hesitated for a moment.

 

“No one,” he answered, darkly.

Thursday shook his head. You would have thought someone was forcing him to listen to a Beatles’ album, what with the way he acted. It wasn’t as if the award wouldn’t help to repair some of the mess he had made of his career.

Because—even though there was no denying that Morse had gotten to his destination—he certainly had left quite a bit of chaos in his wake getting there.

 

Just then, there was a knock at the door. Sam tossed down his napkin and rose to answer it.

In a few moments, Sergeant Jakes was sailing into the dining room, looking as if his ship had just come in. Thursday was surprised.

He knew that at times Jakes rankled at any perceived favoritism he felt Thursday showed to Morse. Many was the time Thursday wanted to take him aside, to tell him, _'you don’t need it, sergeant._ ' But to say such a thing would be to acknowledge it, and Thursday felt that Jakes was bigger than that. 

But the George Medal. Such a thing he thought would be bound to leave Jakes bristling with jealousy. But instead, the man looked simply delighted.

 

“Well, Morse. What do you know? Looks like it’s Deare who's to be locked away, and not you after all,” Jakes said. “Will wonders never cease.”

“Mmmmmmmm,” Morse said, regarding Jakes suspiciously.

And it was true that his words could be seen to cut both ways.  

“So we ready for the off?” Jakes asked.

“I am. Morse is staying put,” Thursday said.

“But, sir,” Morse protested at once.

“It might be all right, if he came in for a while, wouldn’t it? He’ll be the talk of the nick,” Jakes said.

Morse’s face clouded at that; he looked as if he was already changing his mind.

“Besides,” Jakes laughed. “You should see the state of Morse and Fancy’s work area. It’s been weeks, Morse has been out. If he doesn’t get back soon, we might have to send a search party after Fancy to find him in the avalanche of it all.”

Morse groaned and put a hand to his forehead.

“Couldn’t I? Go in just for a bit?” Morse asked. “All I’ll do is sit there. It’s going to be more and more overwhelming, the longer I’m not there.”

Thursday sighed. “All right. A half-day. After lunch, you kip on home.”

Morse made no reply, but instead stood at once from his chair, as if anxious to get to the Jag before Thursday could change his mind.

 

*****

 “Look who it is,” Fancy called. “Sir Morse. Defender of the Realm.”

Morse looked up to see Fancy strolling into the nick with WPC Trewlove, both of them checking in after their morning rounds.

Then, he scowled.

It was unfair, really, that he should have been awarded the medal. He never would have managed to pull the threads of the Deare and Todd case together without Trewlove and Fancy hitting the pavement and discovering the unknown suicide’s true identity, without their visit to Pettifer’s office and to Chipperfield Studios, linking Val Todd to the private investigator.

“You did all the leg work,” Morse protested.

“Oh. So you’re admitting your freshly-minted George medal has ought to do with that, are you?” Trewlove asked.

 

Morse looked down at the paperwork drifting across his desk and tugged on his ear. He supposed he wasn’t to say much about it, he knew.

But he’d be awfully ungrateful if he didn’t say it at least once.  

 

“It doesn’t seem fair, that’s all,” Morse said.  “It’s not as if I did it . . . .”

 

And then, it dawned on him, the truth of Mrs. Thursday’s words. He truly hadn’t done it alone. Fancy and Trewlove had been out and about, quietly checking on leads all along.

And Strange. Morse knew how much that invitation to the mason’s lodge had meant to him, but, when it came down to it, Strange had told him everything he had wanted to know about the secret brotherhood, answering the questions that set the last piece of the puzzle into place, even though, strictly speaking, Morse was sure that he wasn’t supposed to talk about it.

And Jakes, too. For, well . . . .

For not making an issue of the fact that he had belted him one in the interrogation room, during his struggle with Gull.

 

“It’s not as if I did anything on my own,” Morse said. “It doesn’t seem right I’ve been singled out, is all.”

“That’s all right, Morse,” Fancy said, laughing. “I have a feeling your career’s going to need that medal a lot more than ours.”

“Mmmmmmm,” Morse said.

“We’re going for lunch,” Fancy said, then. “Care to join?”

Morse hesitated. He wasn’t sure what had begun to blossom between Fancy and Trewlove since he had been away, but, whatever it was, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to interfere with it, at least not while it was in its fledgling stages.

“No, thank you,” Morse said. “I’m here just for the half day. I’m going home soon.”

“Next time, eh?” Fancy said.

“But you shouldn’t leave Morse here on his first day back with all of the paperwork,” Trewlove protested.

“It’s all right,” Morse countered.  “I sort of owe him.”

“You do?” Fancy asked.

Morse widened his eyes at him. Had he already forgotten how he had covered for him with Thursday, when he was hiding at Bixby’s? How he had told him, ‘you owe me one,’ before he had left, leaving him in his hiding place under the bed?

“Oh,” Fancy said, seeming to cotton on at last. “That was nothing. Actually, I’m not sure if that was the right thing to do, after all, now that I think about it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Morse said. “Of course, it was.”

“No,” Fancy countered. “I’m not so sure.”

Trewlove, in the meanwhile, was watching their exchange with interest.

 “Perhaps it’s best if I don’t know much about this,” she said. “But I will say this: If ever either of you have even a shadow of a doubt as to whether or not you should proceed with something, please, take my advice, and don’t do it.”

“Mmmmm,” Morse said.

Well. That advice was pointless, to say the least. Usually Trewlove was a great deal cleverer that that. It was pointless, after all, to conjecture what might lie ahead. Any future unknowns would have to be dealt with as they arose, that was all.

 “I don’t think it will come up again, to be honest,” Fancy said.  

“Well,” Trewlove said. “Thank heaven for small favors.”

 

*****

 

After all of these long years, it was astounding to realize that he would most likely never run into any of those men again.

Year after year, Jakes had watched them all, reaching higher and higher positions of eminence and authority in their prospective careers, wondering, ‘how can it be so?’

 

Doesn’t anyone see the truth of who they are?

 

It was enough to make a man lose complete faith in the system, in human nature, enough to make a man cynical as hell.

Would no one see it? Would know one see the truth of those bastards?

And, if they didn’t, then what other lies and horrors might also be there, hidden, under the surface of things?

 

Jakes waited for someone to act. For Constable Standish to finally see Deare for what he was. To read in the papers about how Alderman Wintergreen’s many corruptions had been uncovered. Or how Josiah Landesman’s dirty deals had been brought to light.  

 

That it should be Morse of all people to bring these great men down was beyond belief. Who in the hell would have imagined it?

Because he wasn’t sure how Morse had pulled it off, but from the timing of that George Medal, it was clear the constable had _something_ to do with it all.

Jakes walked side by side with Strange, down the stairs from the CID and into the main offices, and, sure enough, Morse was there, sifting through all of the paperwork Fancy had left for him, squaring off the edges of a stack of forms, as if none of this had ever happened.

“Hello, matey,” Strange called.  “You want to come out to the Lamb and Flag? I’m buying.”

“Oh?” Morse asked. “What’s the occasion?”

“It’s this notebook I lost a few weeks back . . . the one belonging to Pettifer. Turned up this morning behind the filing cabinet. It’s a load off my mind, I can tell you. I was going spare over that.”

“Odd, how now that Morse is back, everything is coming right together, isn’t it?” Jakes asked, pulling out a cigarette.   

Morse cast him a severe look, but Jakes was undeterred.

“So? That was you, then. That bit with Deare? It seems an odd coincidence, he goes down in flames, and you’re awarded a medal.”

 

Morse looked at him for a long moment

“If I told you, I would have to kill you,” he said.

 

Jakes laughed.

 

“So. Do you want to go for a pint, or what?” Jakes asked.

 

Morse’s eyes seemed to waver back and forth, searching his face, as if he was trying to determine whether or not he was joking. Then, slowly, he pushed himself back from his desk.

 

“Well,” he said, at last. “All right."

 

Just as though he was doing them a goddamned favor.

By god, Morse was a pretentious arse.

But he was all right, really.

Once you got used to him. 

****

After he left Jakes and Strange at the pub, Morse decided to take the long way home, walking along the Cherwell.

It hadn't been half bad, really, sitting with Strange and Jakes at the Lamb and Flag, hunched together in a dark wooden booth, sipping their pints in the glow of the orange fire in the hearth. 

And it was even better strolling along outside, under a golden autumn sun, free to walk whichever way he wanted. He could stop at the record store, the bookshop, he could pop into Richardson’s and buy a box of Cresswell’s chocolates, to surprise the Thursdays with after dinner.

In the end, he decided to do none of those things, but instead, simply sat down on one of the benches along the river.

And why not? Why not sit for a while and watch the ducks dabble about, watch the people come and go, off on errands, or heading for home, or walking two by two? It was like pageant of humanity passing along, and he was a part of it all, too, sitting right in the midst of it. 

It had been a slog, but, in the end, he had done it. Gull and Deare and Todd were all safely nicked, and here he was, free to do whatever he liked on a glorious afternoon, all of Oxford before him. 

 

Morse leaned slightly forward, and his reflection in the river followed, rippling in the water. He frowned, then, lost in thought. He looked different, somehow. The bruises were still there, blooming across his face, but in the depths of his eyes there was a new sharpness, a new austerity.

He remembered once again, his first day on the force, when Jakes had allowed him to drive the Jag. How he had looked into the rearview mirror, and imagined himself as someone quite different. As someone with steelier eyes and with elegant and cropped silver hair. As a man who had put decades between himself and the white room with its skeletal sevens with jagged edges. 

As Inspector Morse.

 

He looked down at the watery double of himself in the Cherwell wonderingly then, and, suddenly, his reflection did something it had never quite done before.

 

It smiled at him.

 

Not an exuberant grin, like Fancy’s, nor a broad one, like Bixby’s, nor a cultured and understated one, like Tony’s. Just a small smile.  A small and self-satisfied smile. Just like one that might cross one’s face at the end of a job well-done, one that added a new gleam of brightness, of astuteness, to his eyes.

It struck Morse then, that perhaps Inspector Morse _wasn’t_ some chimeric figure he had imagined looking back at him in the rearview mirror months ago, but rather someone very real.

Perhaps, he thought, as he studied his reflection, Inspector Morse was someone who had been there, even though he hadn’t known it, hidden somewhere deep inside him, all along.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! :D
> 
> The end is supposed to line up with the ending of Trove, but I’m not sure if I succeeded in making that scene clear....  
> I might do a sequel to this that would take place in season 4 and skip ahead to 1967. Or I might bring poet Morse and Bixby back for season 7. I sort of like the idea of them working together on a case and having it all click, since usually they are at cross-purposes when they try to undertake something together!  
> Or maybe both! I don’t know...  
> I hope everyone has a great 2020! :0)


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